Favors
by unkeptsecret
Summary: Once upon a time, they fought with bullets. This war is sweeter and much more dangerous.
1. Chapter 1

The car door swung open.

"Sir," his man said.

The flash of the Dupont Classic momentarily chased away the darkness of true night. Chang put a cigarette between his teeth, inhaled, and then put out the lighter. The smoke tasted bad, just like his mood.

Chang stepped out of the car, and his man shut it behind him. The echo of more doors closing bounced down the row of shipping crates as the rest of his entourage left their seats in well-appointed sedans. He had brought only a small crew although he doubted that any of them were necessary. In total, six Triads in their black suits joined him in the creepy quiet of Roanapur's shipping yard at 4:37 am.

Chang had been sleeping when the phone call from Fry Face twenty minutes prior demanded his immediate attention. His private cell nearly clattered off the night stand, and he had to scramble to catch it before it nosedived onto the tile floor.

"Chang, meet me in the usual place. Now," she had said. No greeting, all business.

"It's 4 am, sweetheart. If you want a date at this hour, you have to ask nicer than that," he had replied with a stifled yawn. The sheets were cool and soft, and he had no desire to leave them until well after the sun was up.

Balalaika's brittle tone did not soften. "I have something of yours."

"Is that supposed to tempt me?"

"You have thirty minutes to claim it."

A click, then an empty signal on the line.

Chang had pushed back his deliciously smooth sheets and stood up.

He didn't micromanage. He let the Paper Fans handle the daily details, but Chang knew his business. To the extent of his knowing, Chang wasn't missing anything, so Balalaika's phone call had ruined his easy night's sleep in more ways than one.

There he was at fuck-all o'clock to meet with her at the usual spot when he should have been lost to the pleasure of sleep, and she was late. To top it off, the city had gone silent around them. No gun shots, no honking horns, no shouted curses. It was rare when the city was capable of such peaceful moments, but even the wicked needed rest sometimes. It was just creepy as hell when it happened.

"I don't like this," Danny Lo spoke up. He tossed his gun from hand to hand, then stuffed it back in its holster at his rib. "What does that cunt want with us at this hour?"

Chang narrowed his eyes behind his sunglasses. Danny was a good shot and the loyal type, but he lacked class. Typical 49er for life. His questions weren't usually worth answering, but the situation was _unusual_, which was Roanapur-ese for "somebody's gonna die". All of the men looked uneasy.

"Relax," Chang told them. "If Fry Face wanted to go to war, she-"

"- wouldn't have bothered to wake you up first," Balalaika finished. She stepped out of the shadows with a phalanx of men behind her, all sullen as stone. "Shall we begin?"

"Just waiting on you," Chang said.

Balalaika removed her long coat and took her gun from its holster, handed both to Boris, and stepped forward for the inspection.

Chang tossed his jacket and double pistols to Biu and stretched out his arms. The pat-down was professional and thorough. Chang thought about what he was going to eat for breakfast after he concluded this sure-to-be unpleasant business. Maybe a nice drink by the pool. He imagined the chlorinated water lapping at its blue tiled parameter. He did not think about Biu's hands running the length of Balalaika's lovely leg or smoothing the fabric of that red suit around the curve of her hip. No. Chlorinated water.

Inspections passed, Roanapur's criminal leaders turned in unison and walked the length of the shipping row to the dead end where they had talked so many times before. Chang had called it "Make Out Lane" once, just to piss her off. It had worked so well that he felt lucky to have survived the incident with no broken ribs, but two hours of sleep made it hard to find a witticism now.

It was a moot point anyway. Beside him, Balalaika radiated unhappiness. His ribs wouldn't survive the effect of a joke on her current mood.

They reached the end of the walk and turned back to look at their men. They always met this way, side by side, never looking into each other's faces.

Out of the corner of his eye, Chang watched Balalaika take a hard pull on her cigar. The smoke from her mouth didn't even rise under the weight of the humidity.

"Alright, enough teasing," he said. "You found something of mine?"

She pulled five Polariods from the inside of her jacket and held them out for him. The offering hand shook ever so slightly. Chang felt his stomach drop away.

The Chinese man in the photographs had been worked over. Busted lip, black swollen eyes, gashes, bruises. Chang thumbed through the pictures, trying to see if he knew Balalaika's captive. She stopped him at the fourth picture.

"There," she said, using a lacquered nail to point out the triangle tattoo on the man's chest. "We didn't find it right away or we wouldn't have damaged him quite so much, but he is yours, correct?"

Chang studied the mark. Whoever he was, the man was a Triad and an important one. Only the upper echelon of the organization bore that particular symbol. But he wasn't one of Chang's. Even bloodied and swollen, Chang would have recognized the face of any man of his.

Even so, there was something familiar about the beaten man.

"Heung Hao," Chang found himself saying and instantly wished he hadn't.

The Heungs were the royal family of the Sun Yee On Triad, and the man in the photos had been the third heir to the golden throne until he betrayed the brethren and stole from his brothers, over some women no less. What a joke. Hong Kong had alerted Chang that Hao might try to refuge in Thailand, and if he did, Chang had orders to return him to the fold for "the treatment of traitors", which meant the meat cleaver and a well-documented stack of body parts to serve as a warning to others. It was a gruesome punishment, but effective. Should Sawyer the Cleaner ever wanted to change locations, Chang felt certain she would fit right in with Hong Kong's disposal team, if the Triads ever opened their ranks to women, which they wouldn't, not even to a woman as impressive as Balalaika.

"Then he is one of yours," she said.

Chang glanced back at her. Her eyes had gone up to the yellow moon. She flicked ash from her cigar, and those icy blue eyes shifted to track its glowing descent to the asphalt.

"Tell me where you want him dropped off," she said at last. "I will make the arrangements."

Her balletic hand guided the cigar to her mouth for another long pull. She was actually inhaling, not tasting the smoke as she normally did.

"Mind if I ask where you found him?" Chang asked.

"Drunk in one of my establishments," she answered while Chang studied her sideways.

"I'll cover the damages," he said, just to keep her talking. Something was off with her.

She laughed low and bitter. Her cigar travelled back to her mouth, and he saw it again. Her hand was definitely shaking.

The moon tore the clouds with its yellow teeth, and Chang saw something else in the light. Her suit was always red, but her blouse normally wasn't. Fresh blood soaked the cuff. It half-glistened in the moonlight. One didn't get that kind of soaked from roughing up a thug. A punch left a splatter, and Balalaika wouldn't mess her hands like that. No, enough blood to soak three inches of fine cloth came from a severe wound. It happened when you used your hands to stench the gush of deep blood.

Chang let his eyes flit back to phalanx of her men in the distance. Their sullen faces stared ahead, so the light fell past their eyes, leaving holes of darkness in their stony faces. They were a humorless lot on a good day but, now that he bothered to look, Chang saw their stricken features clearly, and he wondered who among them Hao had killed that night. It had to have been accidental, a lucky shot. Balalaika's Desantniks did not fall to any playboy with a heavy family name.

Balalaika breathed beside him. The smoke gathered around them like a ghost.

"No payment is necessary," she said. "Now, for the location for the drop off, Mr. Chang?"

It was killing her to offer. Balalaika promised valor in death for her men, and Heung Hao's life was hers to snuff out. She owed it to her fallen comrade, she craved revenge, but the tattoo had stayed her hand. She could not kill a Triad without starting a war. It was respect for their treaty that brought her to the shipyard to meet with Chang. She shook with anger because her mind could not justify the primal urges of her black heart.

Chang found the lie sweet and easy on his tongue.

"A drop off for that guy, huh? Sounds like a pain. How about if you do the honors and we all go back to bed?"

He started walking away before he could take back his stupidity.

Behind him, Balalaika took out her phone. A few words in Russian from her lips, a pause, and a distant scream over the line. Two shots, then silence. Balalaika closed her flip phone with a muted click.

Chang kept his face cool and untroubled, like the surface of his pool in the morning. There would be no traitor's treatment for Hao; Chang would figure out a plausible story to appease Hong Kong later.

Balalaika fell into step beside him. He watched her taste the cigar smoke and exhale completely, like a sigh. Her hand no longer shook.

"I did not ask for a favor," she said to him in a low voice, but the edges of her mouth curled up in a small smile.

"Yes, you did," Chang replied with a grim smile of his own. His superiors were going to be pissed, but he would prefer them over a grieving and vengeful Balalaika.

She looked at him at last, that sphinx's smile of hers spreading across her scarred face, and Chang did not think her staggeringly beautiful in the light of the yellow moon. No. Not at all.

"I won't forget this," she swore, and then her lovely legs bore her away from him to the spot where Boris waited like a dog, holding his mistress's things.

"It is finished," Balalaika told him as she swung the coat around her shoulder. "Let's go."

She and her men faded into the shadows again.

Chang did not enjoy the steady clack of her high heels as she walked away. He did not stash the memory of her smile into the safest vault of his mind. He focused on collecting his guns from Biu, ducking into the car, and lighting another cigarette.

He made his mind think of cool sheets and chlorinated water, not on the pleasure of knowing that Balalaika, jaw-achingly beautiful tsarista of Hotel Moscow, owed him a favor.


	2. Chapter 2

No matter how Chang looked at it, standing on rooftop during an unforgiving tropical rainstorm did not feel repayment for a favor. It felt exactly like punishment.

He had been waiting on the edge of that damn flattop building for twenty minutes, getting bored and getting soaked. Even his trusted Dupont failed to work. He couldn't even light a smoke.

Yeah, definitely more punishment than reward.

Balalaika stood beside him, gazing into the circus of rain-smeared city lights and frowning. The rain reduced her (gorgeous) hair to a soggy sheet of blonde at her back, but Chang didn't mind how her wet clothes clung tight against her body. The collar of her white blouse had gone almost translucent, pale skin and pinked scars clearly showing through the dampened fabric, which he liked well enough but not more than he would like getting out of the miserable rain.

"No offense," Chang said, "but your idea of a good time isn't really my style. Let's not do this another time."

Balalaika did not respond. Instead, she fixed a pair of binoculars to her eyes and leveled them towards the harbor.

The sky flashed above them. If the boredom didn't get him, the lightning would.

"Fry Face," he tried again, louder over the din of the rain. "Let's call this off."

"Patience, Chang," Balalaika said. "You will thank me."

Her gaze remained constant across the rooftops.

Another shock of lightning split the sky. Somehow, Chang doubted that whatever she had to show him would earn his gratitude after this rain-soaked misery, unless she planned on getting naked. He might endure a solid ten more minutes of the storm for that vision, but ten minutes was his limit. Chang was not a man to kept waiting, and Balalaika had developed the bad habit of making him wait.

Chang made a mental note to stop hurrying to meet her when she called while the thunder rumbled its agreement. When he looked to the harbor, Chang saw the storm begin to lose its fight. The back of the Buddha took form from the visual static of the rain.

"There, " Balalaika said.

Chang snapped his focus back to her, a tragically uncool move. To his luck, Balalaika hadn't noticed. That something in the distance still had her eye. Chang followed her line of sight, wondering if he should be jealous of whatever had so much of her attention.

In the distance, four figures scrambled back and forth from a building to a junker of a van. Their arms carried heavy black bags. Thieves, clearly, using the rain as their cover. Normally, Chang wouldn't care. Robbery was as common as breakfast in Roanapur. But that building was his, and if memory served (which his did, always), those bags contained enough raw opiate to raise an easy million. It was the latest batch of Triad's drug trade, bound for the north circuit.

He was being robbed by some no-name losers, and Balalaika had invited him up to show him what she had known was coming.

How humiliating.

Chang's hands reached back for his .22's before he remembered that they weren't there. Both of their weapons were one floor below, with their respective men. Even if he had his guns, Chang couldn't stop the men at that distance. He settled his restless hands back into the depths of his overcoat pockets.

"Do you want to see their faces?" Balalaika asked. Her extended hand offered a set of compact binoculars, and her expression offered no hint of a smirk. At least she wasn't going to grind in his embarrassment.

"Thanks," Chang said, keeping his tone nonchalant. He raised the binoculars to find the identities of the soon-to-be dead men.

Through the diminishing rain, Chang saw a guy that he had hired to staff a shipping vessel shove two bags into the back of the van. That man turned to help another, who Chang recognized as a bouncer from one of his establishments up the street. A third man emerged from the storage building to join them. Chang could not see his face, but he knew that this guy was a stranger. He limped slightly, just a tiny drag in his left leg, but that kind of tell would have been easy for Chang to remember. He would have known that limp if the man had done any work for the Triads.

He would have recognized the fourth man, however, from any angle, physical tell or not. Eddie was a 49er, one of Chang's very own. He worked for the drug group, third in line and hungry for more. Chang had no problem with rewarding talent, but Eddie had problems, which was why Chang had blocked his advancement twice. Eddie lacked patience and the self-control to keep his hands off the goods.

Obviously.

Chang's humiliation evolved rapidly into rage.

He had fail-safes in his systems to prevent this exact kind of rip-off, damn it. Chang protected his interests by dividing his business. Oaths of brotherhood meant nothing, he knew that. Very few men in the organization held more than a piece or two of the overall plan at any given time. That was the internal solution. Externally, Chang kept his resources shifting. Part-timers rotated often and were hired alone, never in teams. Routes changed. Storage moved near-constantly. Or so Chang had imagined. The quartet of men robbing the Thailand branch, Chang's branch, of the Triads under the cover of the abating storm had put enough pieces together to manage this.

The sailor knew of the shipment. The bouncer saw the location. Eddie could set up the network to sell it. That left the fourth man as the leader, working free from the notice of the Triads and their intelligence network. They were clever, but clearly Chang had been too lax. Getting ripped off wasn't his style. Things were going to get real for everyone in his organization and soon.

"They had their practice run three nights ago," Balalaika spoke up beside him. "They were smart about it. I just happened to be here to see."

"You come here often?" Chang said with more venom than he wanted.

"Yes," she said simply. Her hand flared outward, and Chang pulled back the binoculars to follow its arch.

The burnt off ends of dozens of cigars clustered at their feet.

"Sometimes, I can't sleep," Balalaika explained, and Chang felt suddenly like he had violated her privacy, as thought the rooftop were a corner of her boudoir. Balalaika seldom shared anything private with him.

She went on, talking faster than usual. "It was mere coincidence that I noticed them. The one with the limp, he used to do some work for me. I caught him skimming."

"And then he got the limp?" Chang asked.

Balalaika smiled. The suddenness of it left him dazzled.

"How did you guess? The others I recognized as yours. I thought, given the standing debt between us, that I owed it to you to share."

Chang couldn't fault the logic, although this was not the favor he would have preferred from her. Right now, he would have liked nothing more than for her to forget it altogether.

"Don't look so pathetic. It was only coincidence that I saw them at all," Balalaika said.

"You can spare my ego," Chang said. His hands flexed in his pockets, aching for the gun metal that could end the thieves and his humiliation.

"Do you trust me?" Balalaika asked.

"I'm not in the mood for pillow talk," Chang said. In the distance, the thieves hauled the last of his opiate to their filthy van.

Balalaika narrowed her eyes at him. "Cute. Let me rephrase. Do you want me to kill them?"

Chang measured her face. The distance was long, and like him, she had no weapons. Curiosity drove his answer.

"Now? Sure," he said.

A wicked grin split Balalaika's face. She reached under the lip of the roof's edge and drew a rifle case from its shadow.

"Do you want to know what I do when I can't sleep and come here?" Her hands were a fast blur. Within seconds, she had leveled the Dragunov on the ledge.

"Let me guess," Chang said. "Target practice."

Balalaika knelt into her weapon of choice. The butt of the rifle nestled against her ready shoulder. The metal of it kissed her cheek. The men were mere steps from the van, the sailor already in the driver's seat to crank the engine. They were far, well over the Dragnov's range of 1300 yards. It was dark and damp. Chang knew better than to underestimate Balalaika, but his reason doubted her chances. There was a limit to skill, even for someone like her.

The rifle cracked and jerked in her arms.

Far away, the sailor slumped over the van's steering wheel. The others started like rabbits, ready to flee.

They never had a chance. Balalaika fired again and again. Eddie and the bouncer dropped to the rain-slick street. The man with the limp tried to run. His bad leg seized, and he pulled it behind him, panic-stricken. Balalaika took advantage of his slowness to line up her final shots. Her bullet caught his good knee and another took him in the head as he tumbled.

"You're good," Chang found himself saying.

Balalaika turned to look up at him. The rain had mashed her hair down around her face. She looked tired and wet and so fucking beautiful with a rifle that Chang felt dizzy from the sight of her.

"I think that you owe me now," she said with devilish fire in her ice-blue eyes.

"We'll see about that," Chang said, knowing she was right. By god, her mouth looked good enough to kiss.

Chang turned to the rooftop exit, the Dupont finally flaring in his cupped hands, as their men burst through the door.

"_Kapitan_!" one of hers cried out.

"We heard shots," one of his said stupidly.

"Relax. It's over," Chang said with the glorious taste of smoke fresh in his mouth.

The men looked dumbfounded as Balalaika snapped the rifle case closed behind him. A dozen of their idiotic questions threatened to poison Chang's sudden good mood.

"We're leaving. Now," he ordered. "One of you, get the Cleaner on the line. We have a mess a couple streets over, and none of us are sleeping until it's nice and tidy around here again."

He ducked through the door back into the building and away, finally, from the last smattering of rain. His closest crew were good guys, loyal and patient, unlike that traitorous Eddie, but Chang wished that they were a little slower. They had come running when they heard those shots, just like they should, but he would have liked another moment in the rain with Balalaika.

He owed her, and the hot urge to show her all of his gratitude pounded in his blood.


	3. Chapter 3

Two weeks later, Chang saw Balalaika return to their rooftop. She took her Dragunov and left another spent cigar. The whole scene played out in less than two minutes, a paltry payoff for the many lonely hours Chang had spent watching for her from his high-rise window.

During the days, he kept busy, busier than he could sustain for more than a couple weeks at a go, because he needed to shore up the loyalties of his men and purge the risky practices that had seeped into his organization through his extended laziness. Ten years had passed since he set up shop in Roanapur, and he had gone far too long between house cleanings during that decade. He couldn't afford any more mistakes.

The work exhausted him, all those decisions about personnel and double-checking paperwork. By evening, Chang wanted nothing more than a shower and sleep, yet he would awaken, burning with unmet need, within hours of falling into bed.

When he awoke, Chang would take his robe and his newly acquired binoculars to the window and look for her.

It was stupid. Impatient Eddie stupid. To see her on that rooftop would change nothing, but Chang couldn't stop searching until Balalaika made it clear that she would no longer use the spot again. Two minutes was all she needed to close out that connection between them.

The feeling that chewed on Chang's guts as he watched her go had so many names, none of them flattering.

On the bright side, he would be able to sleep again, Chang told himself as that disgusting emotion gnawed on his insides. No more siren call of a gorgeous woman with killer aim and insomnia to pull him out of bed. Seven hours of consecutive sleep sounded like a fair trade for his miserable habit. He reasoned that it was all for the best.

When he awoke in the early hours of dawn and reached automatically for the binoculars, Chang finally admitted to himself that reason had nothing to do with it. Forget stupid; he was insane. Some part of him hoped for an impossible outcome in his next meeting with Balalaika, and as long as he owed her, he had an excuse to meet with her. He had to remove that excuse and close the loop around the neck of his mad hope.

The French lingerie cost a small fortune for what amounted to a little bit of black lace, but that lace had been engineered brilliantly to feed the fantasy of any man with decent taste. He had to guess at her size for the shipping order. The enclosed note read: _Thanks for a good time. Let's do it again. Remember, I owe you. _

It was a big, stupid, crazy move. Balalaika would hate it. Chang imagined her anger erupting like Mount Tambora when the package arrived at Hotel Moscow's main office. That would put an end to their private "dates" for months.

Chang signed the approval for the order and poured himself a well-deserved drink. His insane hope could drown now. Good riddance and good night.

* * *

><p>Chang awoke at 4 am, again.<p>

In his mind's eye, Balalaika looked up at him, drenched and triumphant with the Dragunov against her shoulder.

Fuck.


	4. Chapter 4

Biu rapped on the door to Chang's office what that same firm knock that Chang no longer bothered to acknowledge. Biu came in just the same. He always did.

"What?" Chang asked without looking up. The reports spread across the desk in front of him showed how a part-timer had been assigned to the same drug run three times in as many months. Smugglers couldn't risk keeping such regular schedules for strangers. It was just asking for another heist. Worse yet, this little infraction marked the fifth such misstep that Chang had caught that week. Those fucking Paper Fans. Someone would pay for this.

"Dai lo?" Biu said in a voice that bordered on unsure, and Chang looked up. Worry shadowed the lines of Biu's face, a tiny but troubling detail.

Chang couldn't blame the guy. He'd been working so hard that Chang worried about his own mental health. Still, there was no sense in panicking the organization. Chang did his best impression of himself, leaning back in the chair to cross his shined shoes on the corner of the desk. His cigarette rose automatically to meet a casual smile. "What's up?"

Biu shut the door behind him and crossed the room to stand before Chang's desk. "Dai lo, there is something that I have to know," Biu began. "These last weeks, you've been so busy. We all noticed in the beginning, and now the rumors have started."

"What kind of rumors?" Chang asked.

"Rumors about why you are at your desk fourteen hours each day, going over every ledger." Biu paused to frown. "You showed more trust before. You didn't double-check the work of others."

"I had a string of bad luck," Chang broke in to speed up conversation. He had a feeling where this was going. "Sometimes, bad luck is bad luck. But when bad luck strikes twice, you have to wonder if it's chance or if you had it coming. Do you understand?"

"Yes," Biu nodded. "The bad business with Heung Hao and the opium incident. I understand, but that was some time ago. I had expected something to come down from Hong Kong, and you kept that from happening. It stands to reason that the trouble is over, and yet you still keep this pace."

It was Chang's turn to frown. "And that makes you wonder what else is wrong here?"

"No, it makes us wonder if you have decided for something else. The rumors are that you are leaving."

Chang couldn't help but laugh out loud.

Biu blinked. "So we... they... were mistaken?"

"Yeah, you were," Chang kept laughing. "I'm too old for the ambition game. Besides, if you think working like this is bad, you should have been here when I first took over. That was a nightmare I'd rather not repeat."

Biu nodded.

"Tell the men that I'm done digging out their mistakes," Chang said as he flipped around the paper to show Biu about the part-timer. "This shit? It ends now. No more screw-ups. Now, I'm going to get a drink and take a swim."

"Yes, I'll make sure everyone knows," Biu said.

"Don't let them know; make them understand. Find whoever is responsible for this fuck-up, beat his ass, and make it clear that anyone who can't keep up with the job will get the same plus a nice demotion to the house cleaning crew. Are we clear?"

"Very clear," Biu said. "I'll take care of it."

"Great." Chang stood up. His back cracked as he straightened. "Damn, I'm getting old. Starting over someplace else? What a joke."

Biu murmured his agreement, his mind already buried Chang's abandoned paperwork, while Chang breezed toward the elevator. When he got to his private floors, he exchanged his black suit for swim trucks, poured a glass of bourbon, and drank it while reclining on the steps of his pool.

He could see another rainstorm brewing out across the ocean. His swim would be cut short, and then what?

More work was not an option. Apparently, he had pulled so much overtime that that the men were getting idiotic ideas. No doubt that some of them had started jockeying to be his replacement. Making allegiances. Gathering support. That rising mutiny was the real reason that Biu had come to his office to speak. Chang sighed. The last thing that he wanted to fight was insurrection. So no more slogging through the paper logs for him.

He could set up a trip to Hong Kong. That would kill a few weeks, but bailing out of Roanapur to dash back to the main offices would just propagate the rumors. No go on any trips.

He could summon his deputies from the corners of Thailand for their reports. They were overdue for a meeting, but it was the rainy season. Travel sucked year round on Thailand's roadways, but the rainy season made "bad" turn to "near impossible" by washing out the routes and generally making moving around the country overly arduous and miserable. So no deputies' meeting.

That left nothing but pleasure and leisure, two things that Chang usually enjoyed as much as possible. He liked naps and John Woo movies, long dinners and pool time, but something had gone seriously wrong in his primal brain that made any spare moment into a major problem. Balalaika had graduated from night visions to all-day hauntings. He would be doing something mindless, like brushing his teeth, and then she would fill his senses all at once. The blood would flow so fast to his raging erection that it was amazing that he managed to remain upright.

So there it was. He wanted to bang that woman so badly that it made sitting around and doing nothing entirely uncomfortable, and that was the gentle way of putting it. Staying busy was the only way that he had found to make the damn long hours half-way bearable.

The outer bands of rain reached the harbor. He watched the troubled water ripple under the assault of a billion tiny impacts. The rain would reach him soon.

Chang knew that he needed release from the torment of Balalaika. Obviously, another round with his hand wasn't going to cut it. That barely worked when he could submerse himself in work afterwards, and now he had no distractions and too much time. Chang finished the bourbon and dragged himself out of the pool before the rain hit.

Then, as he toweled off, the simple solution dawned on him.

He had her number already programmed into his phone. She answered on the first ring.

"It's been awhile, Mr. Chang. A woman doesn't like to be kept waiting so long." A girlish giggle followed.

"You sound lovely as usual, Flora," Chang said.

"Oh, stop it." Madame Flora giggled again. She had a way of sounding breathless at all times, like she had just been caught in the act itself. Probably the effect of hauling around about 50 kilos of excess fat. Flora was definitely not Chang's type, but the flirting was fun nevertheless.

"I was hoping tonight would be the night that I could talk you out of retirement," Chang said.

"So tempted," Flora replied all breath and wistfulness. "I'd love to show you my many talents, but it's just not meant to be. Besides, my girls are just crazy about you. I don't want to make them jealous."

Chang knew flattery for what it was, but Flora sold it well. He felt better already.

"So what'll it be, sugar? The usual?" she asked.

The usual was a dark-skinned slip of a woman with a nice investment in silicon enhancements and no gag reflex. Chang liked the usual.

"No," he found himself saying. "I'm in the mood for something a little lighter."

"Oooh, that's new. Light as in coloring, right? Because you couldn't find a girl lighter than your usual unless I starved her." Flora giggled again.

"No, no. Light hair. Blonde. Long." Chang winced at his words. What he really wanted was so obvious that he almost managed to blush, but if Flora suspected, she would never say. God bless a professional.

"Anything you want, honey. Variety is the spice of life! And I have just the dish for you. Very beautiful, you know I don't stock anything less, and discreet. Shall I send her over?"

"Yes. Thank you," Chang said.

After he hung up, Chang buzzed the security guys to let them know to expect a guest. He poured another glass of scotch and watched the rain beat up the city while he waited.

The knock came soon enough.

Chang opened the door and took his first look at the potential solution. The blonde hair on Flora's girl fell just to her shoulders and came from a bottle. She looked up at him through lashes heavy with mascara.

Chang's disappointment registered instantly.

"Hello, I'm here to make you happy," she said as she stepped past him uninvited. Her rain-splattered rain coat slid from her pale shoulders and pooled on the floor. Shapely legs in black stockings hooked to red satin stays and a matching lingerie set treated Chang to a beautiful view of a beautiful woman.

"Shall we?" she asked while those sexy legs carried her toward his bed. "Powerful men shouldn't be kept waiting."

Chang re-evaluated his assessment of her. She had confidence, which he liked enough to entice him to follow her into the bedroom, and he liked her even more when he realized that Flora had been diligent in briefing her girl about what he preferred. She knew to tease him just enough to make him come that much harder.

Later, when she gathered up her things to leave, she reached out to touch his bare chest.

"I can tell that you had a good time," she said. "I'm Viola. Ask for me again, okay?"

"I will," Chang said, and meant it.

She let herself out while he stayed in bed, hands tucked behind his head and adrift in easy mindlessness. Calling Flora had been the right move. Chang let his eyes close to wait for untroubled sleep.

The cell phone next to him sang out in the dark. He had to lunge to keep it from clamoring right off the nightstand. He recognized the number, and all plans for a decent night of sleep disappeared.

Just when he had finally gotten her out of his mind, fucking _this_.

"Fry Face!" he answered with as much false enthusiasm as he could muster. "Long time. How have you been?"

"God, I hate it when you are cheerful," Balalaika said drearily. Chang could hear her take a hard pull on her cigar out of annoyance. "I'm the same. You've been _busy_, but I suppose it was necessary."

"I'm hurt," Chang deadpanned. If she wanted to get down to business, that was fine with him. "What do you want?"

"Meet me," Balalaika said, and Chang would have definitely toppled over from lack of blood if he hadn't been lying down already.

"Where?"

"The usual. Would tomorrow suffice? You can pick the time to suit your _busy _schedule."

Damn, she was every bit the bitch that he craved. Chang found it hard to make his mouth form words.

"Why wait? It might not be raining tomorrow, and it's just not a good time for you unless the weather is miserable. Give me an hour. I'll see you then," he said.

His answer was a click, followed by silence of an empty line.

Chang sat up and reached for his sunglasses.

* * *

><p><em>AN: Got some good feedback from the BL ffnet gang that helped this chapter along. Thanks for that, guys. _


	5. Chapter 5

There was the shipping yard, dirty as ever despite the recent storms. There was the customary pat-down and weapons check. There was the rain. Nothing about this meeting was any different from all those meetings past, but everything felt electric to Chang's fevered senses because there was Balalaika, _right there_, walking next to him down Make Out Lane and pulling her overcoat tighter around her against the rain.

"Another romantic rendezvous," he said above the smacking sound of a true downpour on row upon row of shipping crates.

"Are all thugs such babies about the weather?' Balalaika replied with calculated venom.

"Hey, I'm indulging your rain fetish. Again," Chang said. "At the very least you could upgrade me from thug to gangster."

"Because that's such an improvement."

This was good. Banter felt familiar, easy even. Chang could keep her talking until they hit the business part and then end the meeting quickly. He wasn't sure how long imagining his grandmother in the nude could quell his outrageous libido, even after the indulgences of Viola.

Balalaika reached the end of their walk first and turned. Chang took his place beside her, grateful that he didn't need to look at her. It was time to move the meeting along.

"Thug, gangster, or otherwise: you asked me here," he said. "What is it?"

Balalaika attempted to re-light her cigar and failed under the onslaught of rain. Chang made the mistake of looking at her face and jerked his attention back to the dingy pavement.

"I need to ask a favor," she said, and Chang forgot about the pavement to refocus all his energies on remaining upright. He had no reason to hope, after all. This was his madness.

"I'd like you to hire out Black Lagoon in four days. Keep them out of the city for a little while," Balalaika continued.

"How long?"

"48 hours, minimum."

"And?" Chang asked.

"And that is all."

"Why?" Chang knew he sounded like an idiot. He had no need to know her reason; all he needed was to end the meeting and get her out of arm's reach.

"So curious, Chang. Why does it matter?"

"It doesn't. Forget it." He felt her looking at him and resisted the urge to look back at her. Why had he agreed to meet with her so soon? Oh, yes. He was _insane_.

"I can tell you this," she said. "Hotel Moscow has some business with the Rip-Off Church. Unfortunately, Two Hands has developed the bad habit of hanging around with nuns. I'd prefer to keep this matter as uncomplicated as possible."

"And hiring Black Lagoon yourself to get Revy out of the way might be a little obvious, even for our reckless little gunfighter," Chang finished for her.

"Dutch remains a friend," Balalaika shrugged, as if that explained everything.

"Done. But really? This is what phones are for. It's hardly worth letting your sergeant feel me up for something this easy." Talking restored some of his brain function, so Chang went on. "If you want to return the favor, you could stop calling these meetings..."

Chang could not finish the word.

Balalaika had stepped in front of him and allowed her overcoat to fall open, revealing nothing more than his gifted lingerie over her naked body.

His greedy eyes drank her in- _those legs, those hips_- and then they caught on the ruin of her torso and choked. It was impossible to be unmoved by the gruesome story that full view of her scars told. Chang had never seen the like of it in his many years in the business of atrocities. Scar tissue much thicker and more vicious than what marred her face twisted around her middle and extended ugly tendrils down her thighs and around her stomach to her back. The hypertrophic scar tissue piled so thick in places that the outer layers of skin no longer shed naturally. Instead, it clung, whitish and molted, in patches adjacent to the red-raw places were the skin had been rubbed away. Highways of conventional scars raced out from the densest populations of damaged tissue in dozens of slightly depressed, puckered paths. Here and there, the straight, raised remnants of knife wounds bisected the burn marks. Chang saw the newer, circular scars left from his bullets back in '93 punctuating that Balalaika's life had been singularly horrific.

Given the damage, she had no right to be alive, but there she stood, undressed and livid before his unbelieving eyes.

Her fury threatened to burn the entire shipyard to the filthy pavement, but her voice was ice.

"What's wrong, Chang? You look like you might be ill. Is this not what you wanted?" She stepped closer, bringing the vision of her catastrophic past into sharp focus. Chang felt his breath catch.

She went on. "I enjoyed our little game while it lasted, but this ends now. This city lives based on the strength our mutual respect. I had thought that you were smarter than this."

Chang could say nothing.

Balalaika raised her chin and caught him in the fire of her gaze. "This never happens again," she ordered and then moved to close the overcoat around her again, depriving his eyes of the view of her.

"No." The word leapt from his lips like a suicide jumper.

Her lovely and mutilated face twisted as her rage burned hotter.

"Perhaps I am giving you too much credit. Do you want war?" she hissed with more poison than a viper, and Chang felt his insanity take over because, yes, she was a bitch living in the wreckage of her violent past but she was exquisitely beautiful, more so than he had dreamed in spite of, or perhaps because of, those scars. He never wanted a woman that he couldn't have until her, and his insanity told him this moment was the only chance he had to prove otherwise.

His hand flashed out to grab her wrist. He succeeded in tugging her one step closer, close enough to touch, and then (_what the hell, everyone has to go out sooner or later_) he pressed her hand to the physical proof of his desire.

"No, I don't want war," he said as her eyes went wild. "I want you."

For a moment, there was only the thrumming of the rain on the crates and the hot blood in his body.

Balalaika looked at him, a lightyear beyond appalled and breathless.

Chang would have kissed her, but for their men's watchful stare. Instead, he said (or begged, he couldn't be sure): "Meet with me. Alone."

She blinked and then found her voice. "Never."

The word twisted like a bullet in his chest.

"Fine," he grimaced and released her wrist. "You have my apologies for the gift. For the record, you look better than I ever imagined in it, and I spent a long time imagining."

He spared a look over her shoulder to where their men waited. They saw only the uncommon distance between their masters and the back of Balalaika's oversized coat. Her men could not know what he had seen, what he still saw. She had been so careful to keep covered in the rain, but they looked ready to kill Chang all the same.

Chang put his hands back into his pockets and used his own coat to cover the evidence of her effect on him. The first step away from her felt as though it took most of his strength away.

"One last favor, don't wear that oufit for another guy. I would have to kill him," Chang said. Any hope of making it sound like a joke died in the delivery. He was going to drink so much bourbon tonight.

Chang made it another three steps before Balalaika caught up to him. She matched his pace for long enough to say, "I need one week. Find a place for us." Then, she marched past him, resolute and unreadable, to join her men.

There was a chance that she would kill him when they were alone. Chang knew that. He was insane, not stupid, but before he could duck into his car, he had two possible private meeting locations already in mind.


	6. Chapter 6

Chang found the week of waiting surprisingly easy to endure. His madness fixed on the promise of a private encounter. His fantasies played over and over in the theater of his mind. The possibility that she would literally blow his brains out skulked on the perimeter of his imaginings, adding a hard edge that drove his desires ever harder.

Sadly, Chang wasn't young anymore. He couldn't pass a full seven days in a permanent state of mindless lust. Something else had to distract him, so he found pleasurable errands to occupy his hours. He worked out, both his body at his private fitness center and his skills at the common range. He paid a call on Black Lagoon to fulfill his promised favor for Balalaika by hiring them for a dummy run. They would be carrying a few dozen cases of pleasurable oddities to three major Triad posts along the eastern coast of Thailand along with invitations to the deputies' meeting Chang had started to put together for the Chinese New Year. He took great pride in mixing business with leisure, and this meeting would be truly luxurious. Chang passed many enjoyable hours choosing the menus, pairing the courses with wine, and coordinating less-than-legal entertainment while someone else handled the dull logistics of security and staffing.

Not that Chang couldn't handle logistics. His other major pursuit during that week of waiting was locking down the location for his upcoming tryst with the beautifully lethal Balalaika. He thought about a private apartment or renting out an entire hotel, but there was a problem with that sort of ostentatious setting. While Chang had no problem slipping his guards for the occasion outing (indeed, he made going out alone a habit just to prove to everyone that he wasn't too old to handle himself on the streets of Roanapur), Balalaika had no such freedom. Her Desantnikis worshipped her, and like any man gifted with such an incredible treasure, they guarded her with the jealousy of zealots. Chang could count only two incidents where he had seen Balalaika clear of Boris's watchful escort.

While he preferred Egyptian cotton sheets and elegant décor, Chang opted for privacy and a built-in excuse for Balalaika to slip her unsleeping guards over finery.

When the week was up, he called to tell her to meet him at Dr. Chiet's tiny clinic on the edge of the city.

"How romantic," she had sneered at him. "If you are plan to make any tasteless remarks about 'getting a physical', I'd advise against it."

"Relax, I have more class than that," Chang said. His pulse soared at the mere sound of her voice. "I wanted to give you a good reason to duck your watchdogs."

"Am I to play the part of a sick child?"

"That's up to you," he said, losing patience. He loved it when she was a bitch, but not just now. "Look, if you want something else, just say so."

She paused, and then said, "I can't promise much time. Certain matters remain unresolved."

Chang knew about Hotel Moscow's quiet raid on the Church's munitions storehouse. While Balalaika tolerated Mother Yolanda's side business in specialty weapons procurement, the old nun had crossed the line into large scale arms deals. Balalaika had no choice but to interfere. Now, Hotel Moscow had to find a buyer for the huge arsenal of confiscated weaponry to make the necessary 'donation' back to the Church or Yolanda would activate the far-reaching power of her organization's black shadow.

So far, Roanapur had been spared from out-and-out battle, but Balalaika had taken a huge, albeit necessary, risk by acquiring such a massive store without a ready buyer. The Church had little patience to count as a virtue.

Chang did not envy her position, but it was her business, not his. He wanted to ask her for the night, but instead, he kept his answer light. "That's fine. Both of us have demands on our time."

"Nine o'clock," Balalaika said and hung up.

* * *

><p>Chang arrived at 9:15, determined not to wait on her again, but the barred windows at Dr. Chiet's tiny clinic were dark when he arrived. So much for that.<p>

His copied key clicked in the door's lock and then up the series of the deadbolts. Chang stepped inside ahead of the rain, and his eyes didn't need to adjust to the gloom to spot the glimmer of gun metal of the table.

His instincts took over. Hands flew to close on his .22s, but then she moved.

Balalaika crossed her long legs at the knee and settled her arms across her low-cut suit jacket. Her great coat hung over the back of the only other chair, and her face told him nothing.

"Your weapons," she said, voice tight and eyes cold.

Chang disobeyed his instincts, which screamed at him to prepare for certain death. He let his .22s slip down from the ready position to dangle in his forced-relaxed grip. The unblinking eye of Balalaika's stechkin stared at him as Chang placed his pistols on the table next to it.

Balalaika remained a statue in the dark.

Chang slipped off his overcoat and tossed it over hers. The immaculate white scarf followed.

Still, Balalaika watched, unmoving.

She could kill him.

He could kill her.

No underlings would rush in to interfere. Nothing but thin air separated them.

This was the zenith of Chang's madness, and whatever daydreams of smooth moves abandoned him when faced with the living truth of his desire.

Chang opened his mouth, praying for something to say, but Balalaika found her feet first. She lunged toward him, hands closing into fists on his lapels, and the violence of her kiss crashed against his lips, all teeth and tongue.

He did not think; he moved. His hands flowed according to their own hot desire. One urged her hips against his. The other dared to catch in her hair.

The kiss adjusted into something more hungry than brutal. His tongue found the will to push back against hers to reclaim territory.

Balalaika fought back, her fingers flashing over the buttons of his jacket and shirt, and his crushing need to feel her skin against him compelled his to do likewise. The first casualties were their jackets, lost to the floor. Then, they were shoving clothing aside without mercy. Chang caught the vision of her lithe arms exposed for him, and he could not stop or slow or breathe. She pressed the advantage to step out of her heels and attack him anew. Her hot mouth moved on his neck, and he let slip a small gasp that only drove her assault forward.

Some piece of fabric ripped as she pushed him down to the thin pallet on the floor. He took her with him as he fell, rolling her under him at the bottom to split her legs and feel his cock hard against her at last.

Balalaika arched under him, and he took that moment of her distraction to slip one deft hand under her and snap loose her bra. He caught her mouth to burn her with another kiss, but Balalaika would not surrender. Her fingers reached down to close around him and drive him onto his back with such exquisite agony that he let her override his very instinct for survival to pin his body beneath hers because he needed this more than he needed a promise of tomorrow.

She fumbled for a moment in the dark, and then he was inside her, lost in her, captive to the motion of her.

Dimly, Chang was aware that he couldn't last, not like this, not with her eyes lit with lust and slipping closed in outrageous ecstasy while the trio of their weapons watched on and whispered fatal promises from across the small room.

Her opened palms seared his chest as she found the edge of her pleasure in the exact rhythm that he craved. A cry tore from her exposed throat. She seized and dragged him over the precipice with her.

The weightless moment passed.

Chang opened his eyes at last. Balalaika gazed down at him. She had already returned to herself, and Chang felt her weight shift towards the table that held their guns. There was no possible way that he could beat her to the draw from his position. Cold fear sliced through the warm afterglow.

"I could kill you," she said.

"And hello to you, too," Chang replied. She leaned down just as he pushed up on his elbows. Their kiss met somewhere in space between them. Instead of rough and hot, this kiss tasted almost sweet. It felt like reassurance, if Balalaika were capable of such a thing. His hand ached to touch the familiar curve of her face, but she broke away.

"You were late," she said and pushed off of him. "I said nine."

"You did," Chang agreed. She never apologized; neither would he.

Water splashed in the small sink. Balalaika applied a damp cloth to her face, and then reached under her skirt to clean there. Chang loved the sight of her wrapped in the wreckage of her clothes and her hair coming loose at her back.

"I'm leaving now," she said without looking up from her absolutions.

"Now?" he repeated like a fool.

"Yes. There is only so much time I can spare for this."

"Fine. Great, even." Chang lied. He sat up and reached down for his trousers. He wondered how his mood had gone so foul, so fast. What had he expected? A cuddle?

Balalaika's clothes were mostly on already.

"Don't be such a baby," she said. "You were_ late_."

The words were out before he realized his mistake. "I'll remember that for next time."

Balalaika froze.

Chang kept moving to hide his self-anger. He stood to fasten his belt. Fucking _next time_. Right.

After a moment, Balalaika unthawed enough to reach for her gun and tuck it into the holster at her ribs. The buttons came together. The great coat settled around her shoulders.

Her voice was like the whisper of the rain when she looked at him and spoke.

"Next time," she said, "I want a place with a shower and a real bed. Now, if you will pardon me, I must go."

"One second, Balalaika." Chang caught her at the door to press his goodbye kiss against her knuckles. He had one last question. "When?"

She smiled, clearly bemused. "Soon."

"Good answer." He released her hand. "By the way, you are perfection."

"Hyperbole doesn't suit you, babe," she said. Her voice seemed cool, but her smile was hot enough to fire his lust again.

And then she was gone.

* * *

><p><em>AN: For those of you who know me, I swore that I would never write a lemon, but guess what? That was my fear of failure talking. So here's my first sex scene, and it's from a man's perspective. What the f do I know about the male experience of sex? Absolutely nothing. I'm guessing. So if I guessed wrong and screwed this scene up, let me know, fellas, please. I've never been so nervous about posting something. Pardon me while I throw up now. _


	7. Chapter 7

Chang waited five full days to call again.

"Does this qualify as soon?" he asked when she picked up.

"That depends," Balalaika said. He could almost smell the sweetness of her favorite cigars on her smoky exhale. "Have you secured something suitable?"

Chang caught his reflection smiling in the bullet-proof glass of his apartment's window. Damn, he looked good, even better than the spacious apartment that he had rented and outfitted with furnishings worthy of an empress for their next encounter. Stocked bar. Silk carpets. Chilled by the steady whir of air conditioning and lacking only the heat of her to complete Chang's personal paradise.

"Well, Chang?" her voice prodded him out of another x-rated daydream.

"Impatient much, Balalaika? Don't worry. I understand. The place is ready. Just waiting on you," he said. The part in his reflection's black hair was sharp and straight. No wonder she couldn't resist his natural good looks and cultivated cool.

Balalaika's exhale carried the weight of her world. "I can spare two hours tonight," she said at last. "Eleven. Exactly."

"I don't take orders well. Try that again," Chang said as he watched his reflection's jaw go tight.

Balalaika laughed, low and dangerous. "Such nerve, Chang. Are you _busy _again?"

"I never said that." Chang checked his watch, which read 6:07 pm. He wondered, briefly, if asking her to join him for dinner was completely insane. It was. Chang held his ground and waited.

"Very well. I'll rephrase, if it means that much to you. Will you meet me tonight at eleven, babe?" Balalaika said.

"Beautiful delivery, right up to that ridiculous nickname." Chang rattled off the address of the apartment before taking his turn to hang up on her. He needed to stop reeling. Hearing her ask to see him meant more than his pride would have preferred, but once again, his desire trumped all else.

He was there to open the door for her at precisely 11 pm and took the force of her sudden, wordless attack with absolute pleasure. It happened with that same rush of insanity as their first encounter, although Chang had to admit that the generous give of the bed was much easier on his back than the thin pallet at Dr. Chiet's place.

In the exhausted aftermath, she looked down at him and said, "We cannot continue like this," before collapsing into bed next to him, still breathless and flushed. Her twisted mess of clothes hid next to nothing from him.

Chang tucked the arm that wanted to reach for her behind his head.

"You need to work on this pillow talk thing," he said.

The look she shot him would have withered a lesser man. "Don't hide behind another of your poor jokes. You know it would be best to end this now."

Chang closed his eyes. Of all the conversation topics in the universe, this was the one he wanted to discuss the least, but Balalaika couldn't be ignored. She snatched the sunglasses from his face, and Chang used her momentary distraction at seeing him without them to pin her against the pillows with a kiss. He kept right on kissing her until her resistance melted and her arm looped behind his neck to pull him down with her. Only then did Chang break away to meet her eyes honestly, without even his customary shield of tinted glass between them.

"You can lay off the lecture, Balalaika," he said. "This is insanity, I know. But you asked me here." She opened her mouth to argue; Chang pressed on over her rising protest. "You did. You asked me, and I know that you want this as much as I do. We can play Freud and Charcot if you want to waste time on the why of it all, but you can't pretend that we are through just yet."

"Then what shall we play, babe? Star-crossed lovers betrayed by Fate?" she offered with a sneer of disgust.

"No, thanks, I'll pass," Chang said. He dropped his head onto the pillow besides hers. "How about if I pretend that you never brought this up and we go back to enjoying ourselves? I'd love a minute just to look at you. You are thoroughly gorgeous, you know."

Balalaika smiled despite herself. "My, my. You have quite the crush,"

"If only. It's worse. I'm obsessed. This place was an unfinished office three days ago."

Balalaika surveyed the large, well-appointed room and the glimpse of marble shining in soft light that hinted of the palatial bathroom beyond.

"It suits," she decided.

"How generous of you," he said.

She turned to him, and Chang couldn't resist reaching out to liberate the last remaining button on her blouse. When she didn't cut him with another scathing comment, he took a chance and pulled the loosened fastener from her hair. It tumbled in long waves of blond over the rumbled sheets.

"I've murdered men who dared less," she warned without true menace.

"You knocked off my glasses. This is equivalent exchange," Chang reasoned.

Balalaika answered by shrugging off the last of her clothes just to enjoy watching him go slack-jawed with supreme lust from the distance of mere inches. In his younger days, Chang would have taken her again right there. Damn old age. He contented himself by settling a hand over her scarred hip.

As soon as he made contact with her skin, a shiver passed through her. Chang did not question it. The implications might mean too much, and he had meant what he said. He wanted to enjoy these moments with her. He moved his hand to stroke her bare arm. When his thumb skirted a particularly vicious scar, it happened again. The tremor that whipped through her when he touched the site of old wounds had nothing to do with pleasure.

"Do you want me to stop?" he asked.

"You know, I may actually prefer your strange humor to this seriousness," she said, all too lightly.

Chang tightened his hand at her wrist.

Balalaika let her eyes close. "It's nothing. You needn't worry."

His hand dared to take hers, and she let him. She looked so much younger at close range. Chang rarely considered that a solid 15 years separated them. She was the only opponent who had fought him to a draw, and his ego did not relish knowing that she had done so much with fewer years than him.

His hand closed around hers.

"Are all of your secrets worth keeping, Balalaika?" he asked and kissed her once again, softly and briefly, on the mouth.

Her eyes opened. The crystalline blue of them hid nothing from him.

"When the doctor removed the compression bandages for the last time," she began, "he said that I needed to touch all of the scar tissue at least twice a day to avoid hypersensitivity. I didn't accomplish that."

"Why not?" Chang asked.

She looked up to the ceiling. The ocean of her golden hair settled in new patterns that Chang ached to touch. "In the beginning, I was too doped on painkillers to remember his orders."

"And later?" he dared to ask.

"So many questions, Chang. Do you need to know everything?"

"No, my ego just wants to understand why you aren't submitting mindlessly to me now that I have you naked. Such are the many wonders of the universe..."

"Cute. I hate cute," Balalaika said as she extracted her hand from his to draw the newly purchased sheets and down comforter to their shoulders against the artificial breeze from the A/C vents.

Chang turned to face her as a consolation prize for the loss of her hand. He would not risk touching her again just yet.

A siren started up the in the distance and screamed past them on the street below on its way to break up another brawl and claim another bribe. When the sound of it was nothing more than a gull's cry in the harbor, Balalaika spoke again.

"When the bandages first came off, everything hurt too much to touch. So I didn't. But then it became as it is now. I don't bother with it. It doesn't trouble me most of the time. It reminds me..." she trailed off.

Chang thought about what she had to have suffered to earn those scars. The horror of it never failed to amaze him.

"Some things are better forgotten," he said.

"Some things need no reminders," she answered.

Chang ignored his reason and trusted his gut. It had kept him alive so far, after all. His hand reached out under the covers to settle over the epicenter of her scars. Balalaika started, her breath pulling in sharply as he made contact, but she did not stop him. When the first initial tremor subsided, Chang moved again, slowly and in ever-widening spirals, to feel every one of her incredible scars with the palm of his hand.

She closed her eyes again as she fought the titanic waves of sensation that his touch called forth from her with each pass of his hand. A frown creased her brow. Chang wanted to ease it away with a kiss.

"Say the word. I'll stop," he whispered.

Balalaika gave a minute jerk of a nod as she fought to stay on top of the involuntary shivers coursing through her. Chang took it as permission. He covered the span of her stomach and hips, tracking up to her chest slowly. Once there, he took his time before graduating to her shoulders, then arms. Finally, he worked up to her throat and beyond to trace his thumb over her the scars of her face. The process took the better part of their remaining hour, but Chang could think of no better way to pass the time. When he finished, Balalaika rewarded him with a smile.

"Thank you," she said and meant it.

"I can make time to do this every day, if you would like," he offered.

"Hilarious. Your jokes are truly terrible, babe."

"Don't call me babe."

"Baby, then."

"Not an improvement."

She sat up, letting the sheets fall from her. Chang followed. They were almost completely dressed when she spoke again.

"I must admit that I don't like you knowing my secrets, Chang."

"And I don't like your threats to call us off," he replied. It was another fair exchange, a weakness for a weakness. Neither was particularly profound. He couldn't very well reach under her blouse during negotiations or, heaven forbid, another gun battle. She couldn't exploit his need for her without his consent. Still, it was a risk to know at all. She understood it, too.

"You are no fool, Chang. If you were, I would be putting flowers on your grave instead of standing here with you. This is dangerous, for both of us," she said.

"I'm not asking for any promises. Another 'next time' would suffice," he said.

Balalaika checked the watch on his wrist.

"This time is almost over," she said and turned to kiss him good-bye. "We'll do this again, with your secrets of the past next time."

"I don't have secrets," he lied.

"You lie," she said and swept out the door.

* * *

><p><em>AN: Thanks for the encouragement after the last chapter, all. I really appreciate it, especially since you learned one of my secrets. This story is becoming quite a monster. This chapter is the quiet moments before the storm makes landfall for these characters. _


	8. Chapter 8

Coordinating another time to utilize the apartment proved difficult. Chang tried four times over three weeks. Balalaika refused each time without offering an excuse, but Chang could guess at some of her reasons. The business with the Church was going badly for her (or so the Triad's information networks reported).

At the end of the third week, Chang ran into his own business problems. It would be the last internal disaster for years to come, but Chang took little comfort in the promises of the future. The pains-taking evaluation of the business had ferreted out a final traitor in his Thailand branch, just a single, pathetic mid-tier member with an overgrown ego, a trio of expensive habits, and a rabbit's sense of panic that lead to the guilty man burning papers in a trash can at the Phuket offices when Chang's organizational housecleaning went countrywide. The idiot hadn't taken much money, just a few thousand at most, so his discovery lacked the complete humiliation of a full-blown conspiracy. Even so, Chang felt the old revulsion rising as Phuket's deputy, who had unmasked the offender, explained the specifics. The code of the Triad prescribed the meat cleaver for such offenses. There was no other way.

On the night he had to administer the treatment of the traitors to one of his own, Chang returned to his apartment, took the longest, hottest shower that his skin could tolerate, and then phoned Balalaika.

"What now?" she answered on the fifth ring.

Chang got directly to the point. "I need to see you."

"Business?"

In the window's reflection, Chang saw his broad shoulders taunt with tension and immediately envisioned how the tightest muscle falls slack when a blade severs the tendons, the blood spurting from slit arteries.

He closed his eyes. "You know it's not."

"No," she said and hung up on him yet again.

Chang wanted to crush the phone in his fist and hurl it at his tensed and wholly uncool reflection in the window, but pointless destruction was the bad habit of idiots and losers.

His next call was answered immediately.

"Mr. Chang! Hello, handsome," Madame Flora gushed breathlessly.

"Sorry for the late request, Flora. I'm in a bit of a state. Is Viola available?" Chang asked while pouring himself a double of bourbon.

"So urgent! I'm dying to know why, but no matter. You are too important to be denied, Mr. Chang. I'll make sure that she is on her way to you promptly," Flora beamed over the line. "Any special requests?"

"Yeah. Tell her to come hungry," Chang said.

Flora giggled. "Now you're making me jealous, Mr. Chang. You know how to charm a lady."

Balalaika's refusal whispered in the splatter of rain on the windows. _No. No. No._

On any other night, Chang would have laughed at the irony of it all.

After he hung up with Flora, he alerted his security unit and then placed another call to order up a lavish meal.

Viola showed up in an elegant gown the color of wine with her bleached hair twisting in a mass of glossed curls around her pretty face. She made a decent dining companion, even though her conversation skills landed somewhere between polite small talk and raunchy innuendo. _So you like movies? We could make one..._

It didn't matter. He needed her to be what she was: a pretty distraction and an excellent choice for the final course. The wine-colored gown looked divine riding over her hips and splashed across his dining table.

Viola wasn't_ her_, not even close, but she took the edge off of Chang's misery. He had been thriving in the business for longer than most criminals could manage to stay alive, but the river of shit stretched ever onward. Chang needed to teach himself to stop looking for the end of it. Viola couldn't help with that, but she could occupy his apartment for an evening while he processed the worst of it.

Chang pushed Viola and her dress out the door sometime before dawn to be chauffeured back to the cat house in one of his cars, leaving him to catch a few hours of rest before his guts could work themselves back into knots and wake him up. When he could deny the new day no longer, Chang chose active wear over his customary formal attire and spent the rest of the daylight hours wasting time and bullets at the Triad shooting range.

Biu appeared sometime in the early evening after nearly all of the Roanapur-based Triads had shuffled through the ranges to watch their Heavenly King best even the most elite gun fighters in their organization. Even pushing middle age, Chang had not lost his knack for making other gun fighters look like children at play.

Everyone who came to see the spectacle knew that Chang had used a meat cleaver to dice a traitor just the night before, and the cumulative effect of that recent ugly horror against the present blaze of talent left them both cowed and awed. With any luck, Chang would see a decade pass before another traitor dared to break his vows again.

Chang left the range's main grounds when he saw Biu loitering near the entrance. He sauntered towards his second in command while the last of the crowd took its cue and dispersed for the day. Biu offered his leader a fresh cigarette, a lighter, and a slip of paper. Chang took the first two.

Biu did not press the issue. He just leaned into the wall and waited while Chang smoked. That was Biu's best feature in Chang's judgement. Biu didn't sweat it, unless things were going nuclear.

At the end of his smoke, Chang asked, "Can it be dealt with tomorrow?"

"No. The Mafia called a meeting of the heads tonight. Any theories why?" Biu answered.

Chang ground the cigarette into a standing ash tray and considered the question. "Yeah, I have one. Where did we leave the traitor's body?"

"In the open, as is custom. Stacked up in Dangue Square specifically. I didn't want to put it in the main park, not on Sunday with the kids around and the families out," Biu answered, looking away when he said it, as if humanity was a weakness in Roanapur. As if kids couldn't expect to play in the sun without tripping on a femur.

Chang's stomach twisted tighter, but he kept his face smooth. "That's why Ronny wants to chat. Dangue borders Mafia turf. He wants to make sure that there's no trouble."

Biu peeled away from the wall. "I'll set things up on our end."

"Thanks. By the way, Dangue was a good choice. Not the best one because of this, obviously, but we were bound to find trouble with any location. It's been a long time since Roanapur saw something like this," Chang said.

Biu nodded, which summed up his typical response to any of Chang's critiques. "How much time do you need before I send the car?"

"How much time do I have before the meeting?"

"30 minutes."

Chang would have preferred another long, hot shower, but he couldn't chance running late for niceties. He kept a fresh suit at the range for just such incidents, and the locker room had a serviceable wash room.

"Give me ten minutes," he told Biu, who handed Chang another cigarette before heading out to summon the best of their vehicles and the top security detail.

Chang trashed the cigarette in favor of bottled water. He hadn't eaten yet that day, and the smoke went down hard with an empty stomach. The water would have to suffice as nourishment until after the meeting. Chang hoped it would end in a hurry as he thought about dinner selections, and then he realized that she would be there.

Even with last night's harsh refusal fresh in his memory, Chang's hunger for dinner fell away with the rise of another urge, just as primal.

* * *

><p>Meetings of the heads of Roanapur's criminal overlords were much like Chang's old rendezvous with Balalaika only with flashier locations, metal detectors, and three times the number of pat-downs. Chang endured hands of strangers by dreaming up wicked ways to ice the goons currently putting their fingers on the object of his obsession.<p>

After clearing the security checks, they gathered in four identical chairs in the middle of a dance floor at a garish nightclub in Roanapur's tourist district. Ronny the Jaws, Abrego, Balalaika, and Chang sized each other up under the unflattering orange-red disco lights.

"What the hell?" Abrego kicked off the conversation in his typical, classless way. The very sound of his voice made a migraine take root behind Chang's eyes. "Bodies in pieces? In the daylight? That's fucking weird, even for here. You do it, Ronny?"

Ronny had more sense than Abrego and less machismo-fueled aggression than his predecessor, Verrocchio. He did not rise to Abrego's bait. Instead, the head of the Italian mafia in south Asia leaned back in his chair and looked at Chang.

"I called us together to say one thing," Ronny said. "That business in Dangue Square. It wasn't me, and it wasn't mine. I made damn sure. You heard it direct from me, Chang. I know he was one of yours, but the Mafia stands clear of this fine mess."

Chang considered his options before responding. Admitting that his organization had a traitor wasn't one of them. He smiled all the same. "I appreciate that the Mafia's directness, but if I had suspected any one of you, then I wouldn't be sitting here, would I?"

"What a fucking waste," Abrego complained. "Are we done singing folks songs around the campfire now?"

"What's wrong, Abrego?" Balalaika purred from the shadows. "Afraid some manners might rub off on you?"

"Did anyone ask you, _puta_?" Abrego spat.

Balalaika smiled her worst smile. "You are awfully aggressive tonight. It almost seems as though you are on the defensive. I wonder if Chang's assessment of the situation is somewhat misguided. Perhaps the Columbian whore's son doth protest too much?"

"We'll see how much you can talk that trash when you're sucking on dick," Abrego said.

"That's enough," Chang broke in. If Abrego kept on like he was, Chang couldn't guarantee that his own temper would stay in check. Better to end things fast. "It's not worth stirring up trouble here. This bad business is Triad business, and I will own it. Now, unless anyone has any real matters to discuss, I suggest we head our separate ways."

Abrego faked a yawn, the gold chains gibbling on his growing, fleshy throat. "Big fucking waste," he said again.

"Such a limited vocabulary," Balalaika lilted.

"Go fuck yourself. No man alive is going to," Abrego said.

"No, they would be too busy fucking you," Balalaika said, that terrible smile all over her face.

As much as he hated her, Abrego couldn't face down Hotel Moscow, not with the weakness of his present organization and not without better equipment and better men on the ground in Roanapur. The farce of egos ended the same way as usual.

Ronny stood as Abrego stalked out.

"I don't regret calling this meeting, but a little communication beforehand would have saved us all time now," he told Chang.

"Understood," Chang nodded.

Ronny took his leave, and then Chang was alone with Balalaika, who had not moved from her chair to his left.

Her awful smile evaporated as the door closed behind Ronny. She crossed her long legs again; the stockings swishing in the quiet of the empty room. Chang felt his insides lurch from the sudden onset of his insane lust.

"Do you have time for a word, Chang?" she asked.

"For you? Yes," he answered, hoping that by 'word' she meant something decidedly non-verbal.

She had worn her tightest jacket and granted him quite a vision when she leaned over to extinguish her cigar in the ashtray. He swallowed hard as she left her overcoat behind to rise and sound out the distance between them with the definite clicks of her high heels on the stained concrete. Her exquisite cleavage took over his field of view when she bent down to face him with one hand on each of his armrests.

"You've got nerve," she said.

Chang blinked. Since when did they talk first?

His mind hadn't come to the obvious conclusion when her uppercut connected with his gut, sending his stomach on a collision course with his solar plexus. Something foul filled his mouth; he gagged, coughed, gasped. If there had been anything in his stomach, he would have lost it on the garish disco floor.

Balalaika straightened to her full height, a tower of cold fire looming over him.

"I will not stomach disrespect from any man, but I did not expect it from you," she said.

Chang's mind surged when he regained the ability to draw a full breath. _Viola. Fuck._

"Balalaika. Wait-" But she wouldn't wait. She had already turned to retrieve her coat, those legs cutting a resolute path away from him.

Chang stood. The door through which they had entered the club was behind him. She had to come back if she wanted to leave. He swallowed back the vileness that had risen in his throat while Balalaika threw her coat over an arm and kept walking. It was then that Chang noticed a second door, cut into the mirrored wall on the far side of the room like a bad magician's vanishing trick.

In a moment, she would be gone. He would not let that happen.

Chang's speed never failed him. He covered the space between them in the time it took her to complete three steps, but a day of exhausting himself at the range and the lack of food made him clumsy. The hand that meant to catch her shoulder thumped into her back instead. Balalaika whirled around, her coat floating away as her arm powered a fist toward his middle again. Chang turned to dodge it. Her fist passed across his stomach, but then her arm stiffened to a board and altered direction to shove him backwards.

The force of the blunt blow made Chang step back, but his balance held. He caught her wrist before she could retract it and tried to twist it into her back. If he could restrain her, maybe he could kiss her back to sense.

Balalaika's heel sank into his shin. Chang lost focus in the moment of painful impact. She yanked her wrist down, breaking free of his grip when his thumb went soft with distraction.

She made for the door again.

Chang grabbed her from behind, like some gutless vandal snagging a woman on the street, but he needed to keep her there and she did not want to be kept.

She writhed in his grip, elbows narrowly missing a direct hit on his already bruising abdomen. Her strength was incredible. Chang found he couldn't hold her, not even with Balalaika pulling her punches. If he walked out of the room with any visible mark of injury, it would be war. She had to target areas of his body that wouldn't show, which was the only reason she hadn't bloodied his nose and split his lips.

He was bound by the same limitation. He couldn't drop her cold, and he couldn't hope to restrain her without leaving damning evidence on her pale skin. He had her by the arms for now, but he would lose her and soon. He needed to think fast.

Chang drew her elbows closer to one another, absorbing her strikes until Balalaika gasped from the pain of it.

"Release me, you bastard," she hissed, and Chang felt her weight shift to her left leg as her right prepared to stomp on his foot. In that fraction of second during which Balalaika's balance had no center, he released her with a shove. She lurched forward, but Chang caught her hand. The fall swung into an arch as her body pivoted toward him, her tumble hinging on her caught wrist. Her other hand hardened into a fist. The momentum would carry that fist into his aching stomach. Before her blow could rob him of breath again, Chang ate his pride and said what he knew she deserved to hear.

"I'm sorry."

And then he stood there and took the full force of her punch.

Chang spent some minutes doubled over and coughing up bile. When the spasms subsided, Chang used his sleeve to clean up his mouth and straightened.

Balalaika was standing there, watching. Nothing in her face told him that she had enjoyed his pathetic little show. She appeared to be waiting on him.

Chang took a deep breath, despite the pain. "I mean it, Balalaika. I am sorry."

Her voice was a rasp. "Then, why?"

"Because you told me no," he answered honestly.

"Then what am I? First on your list of whores?" she hissed.

"You want to feel disrespected? Fine. But if you want to have a conversation with me about disrespect, let's talk about how you keep hanging up on me. I said that I needed to see you, and you couldn't even find the courtesy to let me down with dignity."

Balalaika's eyes narrowed into dangerous slits, the right one glowing almost incandescently from the wreckage of her facial scar. "Yes, let's talk about how you kept your whore for dinner and the night while you ask me to places that don't even have beds."

"Look, I'm not going to talk you out of your bad mood if you have your heart set on feeling slighted, but that's not the whole dirty story and you know it. You keep me begging for the scraps of time that you throw to me. An hour or two at most. That's all that you allow me. And I drop everything to make it happen, like you are doing me a fucking favor. On top of all that mess, you have my apology for what happened last night. Is that enough for you?"

Her reply was instant. "No."

Chang closed his eyes behind his sunglasses. He should have let her walk. He should have kept his pride. He should have kept his insanity in a box. He should have...

"I will not share you," she said. "I need to know that much. Now."

Chang opened his eyes. She hadn't moved. Still watching him, still waiting. He wanted to answer her immediately, but his pride needed her to pay a price. His hand stretched out to find the familiar curve of her face, his thumb brushing along her scar, and she let him see the involuntary shiver pass through her. It was enough.

"You have me for as long as this lasts," he said. "But I'm done being a fool for you. Give me more or cut me free."

She found his eyes. Her gaze did not burn. She looked tired and a little sick. Chang's mind wondered in a distant way just how badly her business with the Rip-Off Church had gone, but the rest of him couldn't resist the pull of her mouth for another second. She came to meet him halfway for the kiss.

"Agreed," she said when he pulled away, and it took Chang a second to remember that he had offered her an ultimatum. "I will make time for us."

"Can you make time for a night?" Chang found himself asking.

"Why?"

"Because I want to do this right for a change."

Balalaika smiled at him. "You want to date after all. Adorable."

"Knock it off, Fry Face. You know what I mean."

Her smile turned sad. "No, I don't. Chang, what do you think a woman like me would know of the rituals of romance?"

"Then, I'll take responsibility for giving you a crash course. Give me a night."

She placed her hand over his tenderized midsection. "Not at the apartment."

Chang grimaced. "You like making things difficult for me."

"No, I don't," she answered. "I have limitations. I can give you a night, but I will do the planning this time."

"I'm not going to give you a great date if I can't plan it. Let me handle this one."

"It won't work that way." She shook her head.

"Look, do you want to have another fight? Because I would prefer to kiss and make up."

It was a bad joke, even by his standards, but it worked. Balalaika's hand moved up to his chest and then into his hair.

"Only kiss?" she teased.

"Do you have time now?" he asked.

Balalaika's mouth appeared, sudden and hot, on his. She pushed him backwards until he bumped into a chair, which caught him behind the knees. He tumbled back into it, and she settled over him, her legs straddled over his lap.

"Trust me, Chang," she said while shrugging off her suit jacket. "If you want a night, then you must leave it to me to plan."

"Do I have a choice?" he asked, and she did not choose to answer with words.


	9. Chapter 9

During his morning shower, Chang studied his purple and blue souvenirs from last night's encounter with Balalaika. It was a marvel that his outbreak of extreme insanity hadn't cost him more than a few bruises. He had been stupid but lucky, skirting the razor's edge upon which they danced without drawing blood. Chang could not risk over-reaching again. The next move belonged to Balalaika.

She did not keep him waiting. Her call came just after dusk.

"Where are you?" Balalaika demanded.

"My place, getting ready for a decent dinner and a good movie," he answered, carefully leaving out the invitation that he so wanted to offer.

"Is that typical?"

"As typical as any of my evenings in Roanapur. I'm alone, if that matters to you."

"A nice meal would please me, but unfortunately, my plate is full of the usual business fare." She paused to take pull on her cigar, and when she spoke again, her voice had dropped low and sexy as hell. "Some loose ends need tying up on my end, but my plan is to see you soon. I intend to keep my word."

Chang kept his cool while the fires of his desire blazed. "Take your time. I don't mind waiting."

"Such lies, Chang. Your behavior last night showed me a more truthful assessment of your, shall we say, affections."

Chang could hear her smirking, but he had his own ace to play. "Ah, last night, when the Great Balalaika was dangerously jealous of a hooker. I remember it well."

"Hmmmm, and how are your bruises this evening, babe?"

"I'll heal," Chang said unable to keep his grin out of his voice. "And since I agreed to your request to go steady and all, what would you say about getting me a new nickname?"

"I would say no. You will suffer with it until you learn to like it," she answered, and then another pause came over the line. Chang did not rush to fill the silence. She spoke again eventually, all flirtation gone. "I am not proud of my actions last night."

"Then let's forget everything up until the end," Chang offered. "The ending was fantastic."

"Yes. Yes, it was that. Even so, I want to say to you that I'm-"

Chang cut her off. "Forget it, Balalaika. Let's keep last night in the past because right now, in the present, I'm waiting for you. Get back to work, wrap up whatever it is that has been keeping you from me, and then make good on your promises."

Balalaika laughed a little. "You misjudge me, Chang. Did you think I was going to apologize? I wanted to say that I'm impatient to enjoy our next time. Try not to get into any trouble in the meanwhile."

"That's the idea."

"Good. Until then."

"Until then." Chang put down the phone and took a minute to admire his good-looking reflection. If he had known that a little bit of jealousy would shake up the Great Balalaika so much that she would call him just to flirt and then end the conversation with a proper farewell instead of the usual hang up, he would have fucked Viola much sooner. Hiring a whore had been a good idea after all.

He raised his arms to stretch out, and the bruises on his stomach argued otherwise, loudly.

* * *

><p>Some days later, someone buzzed the poolside phone just as Chang had settled into the pool's shallows to enjoy an after-work cocktail. The status quo was returning to the Thailand Triads, just as he liked it, and Chang thought he deserved to enjoy his celebratory Mai Tai without interruptions. He debated letting the phone ring into oblivion, but then somebody would just come up to deliver the message personally.<p>

Chang set his glass on the edge of the pool, hauled himself out of the water, and answered it. "What?"

"Boss, are you expecting company?" one of the security guys asked.

"Not in particular. Why?"

"This blonde chick is here. Says she is from Flora's and that you are expecting her. Should I bring her up?"

Chang sighed. Viola would be that over-confident. If she had any desire to stay alive in Roanapur, then showing up without a summons needed to come off her list of "Things to Do on a Tuesday". His still-sore abs reminded him that Balalaika had definite opinions on the topic of Viola's visits as well, but more importantly, someone linked closely into Flora's operation had to have provided Balalaika with her intel. All of Flora's girls were off the menu indefinitely thanks to that leak.

"Yeah, send her up," Chang told his security lead. "I want to have a word with her. There are things I need to make clear, and if she is already here, then we can make it damn clear in person."

"Right, Boss. I'll bring her myself."

"Thanks." Chang pulled on a robe and made himself comfortable in a reclining chair. Getting her through the recently improved security measures would take a few minutes. He had almost finished his drink by the time that his guest arrived. The door to the rooftop pool opened, and Chang turned.

She wasn't Viola. All of Chang's internal alarms went off at once. Whoever she was, the woman had to be fearless. Posing as one of Flora's girls was as risky as a Hail Mary pass, but sometimes high risk paid high reward. She had made it this far into Chang's sanctuary, but she had to know that the trick play ended as soon as he set eyes on her unfamiliar face. Sure, she had caught him flat-footed. His guns were in his room, way too far from the pool. Hell, he wasn't even wearing decent shoes. But she couldn't be armed if she had made it through his amped up security, and if she wanted to launch an attack, she should have done it already. So why stand there? Why wait?

Chang didn't like those kinds of questions. He wanted answers, so made his way to his feet as casually as possible, wrapping the robe over his obviously damaged stomach while he decided how to play it. As usual, he opted for cool.

"Hello," he greeted the stranger with a practiced, easy smile.

"Hi," she squeaked in a voice far too small for her statuesque build. Chang surveyed her as he approached. The woman before him wasn't dressed for a physical attack in the least. She swayed on dangerously high heels. Opaque black tights covered her legs, but the rest of her had been poured into a long-sleeved, high-necked dress that glowed a lurid, radioactive orange emblazoned with white stencil peace symbols. Her iron-flat hair was blonde, as his security man had reported, but chunks of orange and red shot through the impressive length of it. China doll bangs razored across her fair face, and dark brown eyes blinked from under a heavy blanket of make-up that appeared to have been troweled on by a brick layer.

The security guy crossed his thick arms and jerked his chin at the woman. "No weapons on her, unless you count those heels. She's clear. We searched that big bag of hers twice."

Chang stopped a few feet from his visitor to set his glass on table and free up his hands. Even though she looked every bit the part of a cheap whore, right down to the vacant eyes, something about that woman sent vivid jags of adrenaline shooting through his blood.

"I didn't ask for company from Flora tonight," he said. "Who are you?"

A pretty frown creased the woman's smooth, fair face. Her metric fuck-ton of make-up must have been made of sturdy stuff to stay affixed to her skin like that.

"Flora said that you like blondes? So I came over?" she said, every airy sentence rising into a question with uncertainity. "I heard that you were expecting some one for the night? You were expecting someone, right?" The woman looked helplessly from Chang to the security guard, than back. "Let me call Flora, okay?"

She dropped her huge purse onto a chair and bent over, tight ass in the air, to dig through its depths. Like any man, Chang couldn't help but look, and then realization hit him hard and fast.

Damn, he didn't know that she could act...

"It's fine," he said, waving his guard to the door. "She can stay."

The guard frowned. "You sure, Boss?"

"I can handle this," Chang said.

The guard took a final look at the woman's fine rear swaying high as she continued the hunt through her bag and then shrugged. "I'll make sure there are no interruptions."

When the door closed, the woman stood and turned to face him. The mask of stupidity fell away, and her triumphant smile rocked him with its intensity.

"Hello, Balalaika," Chang said.

"It took you long enough to pick up my hints. Or did you just enjoy my little show?" she answered in her true voice, the bimbo's uncertainty banished.

"Truth? I'd know that ass anywhere."

Balalaika put her hands on her hips and narrowed her eyes. "My, that's a charming way to begin our date."

"Pardon me for skimping on the charm. You just crashed my security and made me look like a chump. "

"And I lied to my men and endured this indignity-" She gestured at her ridiculous outfit. "- because there was no other way to keep my promise to you. I took great measures to ensure our privacy, and I expected more gratitude from you."

Chang took a moment to breathe and process the enormity of the situation. Balalaika was standing next to his pool. She had crossed through his security unnoticed. No one would come to check up on him. If she wanted to kill him now, she could get away with it and then walk right back out the way that she came in. No one would know. The perfect crime.

Well, if he was going to die today, he might as well die happy.

"We can talk more when that dress stops burning holes in my eyes. Does it come off?" he said. If there was a zipper on the thing, Chang couldn't see it over the astounding ugliness of that dress.

Her eyes flicked to the skyline. "Yes, but not where I can be seen."

"Come with me," he said and turned toward the sliding glass doors to his private quarters. He paused at the doorway to let her go first, and that she went before him with only a fraction of a second's hesitation over entering the home of her enemy did much to still the turbulence that her unexpected arrival had incited in his head.

Once inside, he closed the door behind them, and she tipped her head to let her ironed hair fall to the side. The zipper sat just beneath her hairline where the dress's high neck finally stopped. She needed that level of coverage to conceal her scars. Chang caught the metal nub and pulled it all the way down to the hem, splitting the horrible thing completely open before pushing the awful orange off her long arms. The dress dropped to the floor, and she turned to face him.

"Better," he said. "How did you know I would be here?"

"You told me that it was your usual," Balalaika answered.

"I remember. Was that the real reason that you called the other day?"

"Yes," she answered immediately. Without the dress's horror to blind him, Chang could see the extreme measures she had taken to slip her well-known and terribly unique identity. He touched her hair and found the clips that held the colored extensions and false bangs in place.

"May I?" he asked.

She stepped out of her tall heels so that she stood just under his height and dropped her chin to give me easy access to the crown of her head. His fingers worked fast. The false hair joined the dress on floor. Pressed flat, her hair lacked the wildness that he loved, but it felt good slipping between his fingers all the same.

"What else can come off?" he asked.

She quirked an eyebrow but never stopped smiling. "Not so fast, Chang. I am owed dinner at least, am I not?"

Chang touched her cheek. The latex patch disguising her scar felt unnaturally smooth under his fingertips. "I meant this. Does it come off?"

"I had imagined you would like it." She turned her cheek toward him for closer examination. "I am somewhat beautiful without the scars, am I not?"

"You are stunning with them," Chang said. "In fact, I prefer you with them."

"A pity. This cover job took two hours to complete. I lack the skill to do it on my own. All of this needs to be intact when I leave tomorrow."

"Tomorrow, eh?"

Balalaika blinked. "Yes, tomorrow. That was my promise to you."

Chang leaned in to kiss her and regretted it. He hated the unfamiliar cherry taste and stickiness of her cheap lip gloss. He pulled away, wiping at his mouth, and disappointment showed clearly on her face even through the gallons of make-up. He found her eyes and held in his wince. Looking into a false brown instead of her iced blue was creeping him out.

"It's not you," he told her. "Your disguise is perfect as any I've seen and you are impressive as ever for pulling this off, but I'm not into this street walker look. How about if you go back to being Balalaika as much as you can while I see about holding up my end of the promise? I owe you a date."

Balalaika drew up to her full height. "Very well."

There was that coldness in her voice, so Chang put his hands on her waist and smiled for her. "No one but you would have the balls to come up with a plan like this. You are audacious and brilliant and reckless, Balalaika. You really had me going until that ass gave you away."

She smacked his stomach with the back of her hand, enjoying his grunt of pain. Balalaika even _played_ hard.

"I was not able to bring a change of clothes," she said. "May I borrow yours?"

"The bathroom is behind you, and my closet is on the left. Use anything you like."

She turned and disappeared into his bathroom, taking her enormous purse with her. Chang went for the phone by his bed to make the necessary arrangements.

Ten minutes later, he had closed the door between his bedroom and the living area to allow for his people to complete the set-up while he kept her from any prying eyes. She emerged from the bathroom without the contacts, and although the latex remained, most of the make-up had gone as well. Better still, she had traded the hooker clothes for his black silk robe. The sash hitched around her sleek waist, golden-thread dragons twisted up her sides, and a peek of black French lingerie showed at her chest to tempt him. Chang was so distracted by the casual beauty of Balalaika in his robe that he nearly missed the gun in her hand until she held it upright.

"I found this in your towels. A Smith & Wesson 637? This is a toy, not a gun," she said with disgust. She clicked the chamber open and spun the chassis. Bullets bounced when they hit the floor and rolled in all directions.

"Don't knock it. It matches my shaving kit." Chang held up the two glasses of bourbon that he had poured for them. "Join me for a drink?"

Balalaika took her time crossing the room, savoring his rapt attention almost as much as he savored watching her move. When she came within arm's reach, she traded the gun for a glass and sipped.

"Not bad," she said.

"I could say the same about you," he replied as he put the gun on the coffee table before them and she settled onto the black leather sofa. Chang had considered the bed, but then the temptation would have been too great. Tonight would be different for them. No rush.

Chang tried to remember the last time that he had to woo a woman, which just made him feel old. Had it been that many years? Better to go with the classic approach.

He laid a hand on her exposed knee and said, "You look beautiful."

Balalaika snorted. "How many variations on that line do you plan on using?"

"Just take the compliment. I'm saying it because I'm thinking it."

"More lies." Balalaika took another sip of bourbon. "You are thinking about fucking, Chang. I can see it on your face. Do you know how I can tell? " She leaned forward. The robe's opening gaped. "Because you blush."

"I _am _capable of having more than one thought at a time," Chang reasoned.

He started to lean over to kiss her gloss-free lips, but then, Balalaika made a face. She shifted to the side, reached into the cushions of his sofa, and pulled out another gun. Her expression of contempt did nothing to wound his ego. That glimpse of his gift under the silk robe made Chang's pride damn near indestructible.

"You are like a rodent preparing for winter. How many weapons have you hidden in this room?" she said, dropping the clip from the uncustomized .22. She racked the slide a few times to clear it before setting the gun on the table.

Chang surveyed the room. "Fifteen?" he guessed.

Balalaika threw back her head and howled with laughter, and it took Chang a full second to recover from the suddenness of it. He had seen that look on her face only once before, when they were leveling their weapons at each other just before the bullets flew in '93.

Balalaika was happy.

Why shouldn't she be? People like them rarely had the chance to relax in company. In public, they kept in appearances. In private, they were alone. That was the price of their power, but tonight was different. So what if she had surprised him? He would not pollute their time together with fear.

Chang drained his glass and reached for the bottle. When he turned back to refill their drinks, Balalaika chose that moment to kiss him. She tasted of liquor and laughter, and Chang let the last of his worries melt on away on the heat of her tongue.

* * *

><p><em>Notes: Many thanks to the talented MarshalZhukov for the beta work on this chapter and the always honest Gramnegative for the much-needed kick in the a$$. Draco38 gets a special shout-out for feeding me an easy joke in the reviews that made its way on page, too. All of these lovely people are fellow BL writers, so if you are looking for something to feed your appetite until the next chapter, check out their stories. <em>


	10. Chapter 10

Once he made the choice to accept Balalaika's presence in his rooms as the incredible opportunity it was, Chang's heart stopped heaving itself against his breastbone in frantic warning. Only an idiot would poison such a priceless night by dwelling on the implications of his howling need for such a dangerous temptation as Balalaika or what it meant that she had risked so much to obtain a single evening with him. In Roanapur, thinking too much made you dead, so Chang reached inside and switched off his internal alarms. It was so easy to do with two strong drinks already in his bloodstream and the kiss of a stunning woman hot on his mouth.

Balalaika never bothered with subtlety. While her tongue slid against his, her hands undid the band on his terrycloth robe and shoved it away. It was damp and smelled of pool water; Chang was happy to be rid of it. The silk of her borrowed _yi_, heated by her skin, felt far better against his bare chest. She insinuated her body into his lap, robbed him of his customary shades, and deepened their kiss.

Chang tried to stop her relentless advances at his (admittedly wet and cold) swim trunks, but Balalaika refused to be denied. Chang caught a glorious fistful of her straightened hair and routed her attacks with a sharp yank.

She gasped, but before she could turn on him, Chang tasted the curve of her throat and traveled fast from there until his lips moved against the shell of her ear.

"Don't rush this," he said.

She snapped her head to glare at him, an argument at the ready. Chang knew he would lose. No one could stand between Balalaika and what she desired for long, so he opted to fight another way. The gifted panties were easy to push aside, and her expression when he reached into her took his breath away.

"Damn you," she breathed.

His thumb found the right place, and she arched in his arms. Chang laid her back on the sofa and leaned down to take a kiss from her open mouth.

"Do you want me to show you something I'd never do for some whore?" he asked.

She elected not to respond, which Chang savored as a form of surrender. He bent down to taste her at last, eliciting another gasp for his efforts.

"Are you not the one rushing now?" she managed to threaten.

Chang meant to gloat, but it came out sincere. "No, this will be perfectly slow."

And then a sharp knock sounded.

Balalaika was on her feet with a gun from the coffee table in her hand before he could speak, her thighs snapping together so fast that Chang nearly lost a hand. It took a long second to cut through the fog of lust in his head to find the right words.

"It's dinner, Balalaika," he got out at last. "I ordered dinner for us. It's ready in the other room."

The stricken look faded from her face, but the tension in her body remained. The magic moment of a near-boneless Balalaika arching back in his arms was totally gone. Her defenses were up, hard and resolute, once again.

Chang held out her unfinished glass of bourbon to her. "I should have warned you."

"It would not have mattered," she replied, taking his offering and draining it flat.

Chang took the glass back from her to refill it. Then, he produced a fresh pack of cigarettes and a lighter from the drawer of the side table, tugged the empty gun free from her grip, and replaced it with the smokes. She took both the pack and the lighter without a word.

"I would like to offer you a cigar but I'd have to call up for one, so it's a risk," he said while she tore off the box's plastic wrapping.

"A risk not worth taking." Balalaika shook her head.

"Hey." Chang stood to look her in the eye. "You took a hell of a risk in coming here tonight. I hate to admit it, but this is one favor I'll have a hard time returning. Doesn't mean I won't give it a try, of course."

Enough of the bad surprise had worn off that Balalaika could smile for him around her newly lit cigarette. Chang wanted to kiss her again but then he would want her right back on his sofa, finishing what she had started, and Chang had meant what he said. Tonight would be different from their customary fuck-and-run. Tonight, he would show her more.

"Make yourself comfortable while I change for dinner. I'll just be a minute," he told her, but Balalaika followed him into the bathroom anyway, leaning against the marble counter to use the sink basin as her ash tray. Chang had to turn his back to her to enter his cavernous walk-in closet and needed calm his frantic heart all over again. It couldn't forget there was another loaded gun taped under that sink.

"Don't bother with another of your funeral black suits," she called out from behind him.

Chang surveyed his closet full of black jackets, black trousers, and crisp white shirts. "Nothing wrong with a good suit, sweetheart."

He could almost hear her rolling her eyes.

"Sweetheart? How vile."

"Keep making fun of the suits, and you'll get worse from me." He reached for his favorite jacket, a classic cut Armani, among the myriad designer options.

"Your threats are so amusing. Here's one for you, then. Wear another of your black suits to dinner and I will make sure that you can never wear it again."

"What is that supposed to mean?"

The sound of tape ripping from metal answered his question. Balalaika had found the other gun.

Chang returned the hanger in his hand to its rod.

He had a pair of black silk drawstring trousers hooked over the back of the closet door,that he typically wore with the robe currently on his unexpected guest. His only other options were swim trunks or gym clothes. Chang suppressed a sigh and changed.

She had already cleared the gun and set its pieces on the counter when he returned to the bathroom. Balalaika gave him a shameless once over with her eyes before flipping her spent cigarette into the sink. No subtlety, whatsoever. Chang was beginning to love that about her.

"No shirt for dinner?" she asked.

"You're wearing the rest of my outfit. I'd be happy to take it back, if it means that much to you."

"Absolutely not. But it is a shame that I was not able to bring something more appropriate than this," she said. One hand smoothed down the golden dragon stitched along her side.

The silk robe had come open again, affording him a terrific view of that expensive French lingerie set and Balalaika's long legs, naked down to her bare feet.

"Trust me," he said. "What you are wearing is perfect."

Balalaika stayed back in the bathroom when he crossed the room to open the door that connected his bed chamber to his private living quarters. The table in his small dining area had been set according to his directions. A traditional feast of Hong Kong delights was steaming in chafing dishes. Chang really needed to give his kitchen staff a raise. The smell alone was divine.

He set about opening a bottle of wine while Balalaika overcame her caution and joined him. She took one of the enormous dining chairs to his left, leaning an elbow on the table to enjoy her second cigarette.

The cork made a popping sound in the growing silence. A meal with just the two of them with no business agenda or immediate crisis to drive the conversation made the weird reality of the evening turn even odder. A night. With Balalaika. Even now, Chang's mind couldn't quite make sense of it. He decided to attempt small talk because it was either that or hauling her over his shoulder and dragging her back to the bedroom.

"I thought about bringing in some of your country's favorite dishes, but I thought it was a bit obvious. I think we will both stay alive longer without broadcasting that you are here."

Balalaika shrugged. "I know for a fact that there are many Russian prostitutes in this city. My men prefer them."

"Do you also provide them?"

Her response lacked any embarrassment. "Yes."

Chang put a glass of wine in front of both of them and started to fill his empty plate. "That is quite a full-service operation that you run."

Balalaika accepted the glass but did not drink. The burning cigarette dangled from her long fingers. "You sound jealous."

"Of them? Not quite."

"No, of me. That recent incident with the body in Dangue Square. You had an issue with loyalty in your ranks, but I fear nothing of the sort from my men." She breathed out smoke but not condescension. Balalaika was even worse at small talk than he was.

Chang finished piling food on his plate and settled into his own enormous chair to start on a spring roll.

"I meant no offense," she said after a quiet minute.

"None was taken," Chang said truthfully. He hadn't meant to go silent, but the dark thing that had stirred in his mind at her allusion to the traitor needed some inner wrangling to suppress. He reached for another delicacy, but Balalaika stole his plate and helped herself to it instead.

Her eyes flashed mischief. She leaned back in her chair and swallowed her first bite of spare rib. "Be flattered that I don't see it necessary to make you taste everything first."

"Poison isn't my style. I have some class."

"That's interesting coming from the man who isn't wearing a shirt at dinner," she said with a hint of lilt in her voice.

Oh, god. She was flirting now. The realization helped Chang finally slam the cage door on the dark thing in his head.

He reached over and reclaimed his plate. "I can assure you that everything is delicious, but we all have our preferences."

"But preferences change, don't they?" She swiped a dumpling from his plate and weighed it in her hand. Steam poured from it, but she did not flinch. "For instance, you used to prefer all things that tasted of home, including your on-call women. Flora had a special one, just for you, did she not? You know that I would never have been able to come here tonight if you had not altered your preference in that area."

"People are allowed to change."

"Yes, but people only change for a reason," she pressed.

"You know, there are better ways to fish for a compliment, Fry Face. I got a thing for blondes when I got a thing for you. But that hardly matters since you bought off Flora's operation."

"Poor baby. It is hardly my problem that you cannot order up a girl."

"This jealousy thing isn't cute."

"Another problem that is not mine," she said and stole back his plate.

Chang gave up and reached for a new one. "You know, I couldn't help but notice that this jealous streak isn't the only change in you," he said as he loaded up the second plate with his favorites once again.

"Is that so?" she smirked at him, still happy in her tiny victory, but Chang still had some moves to play.

"Yeah," he said. "Those scars of yours are looking better now. More pink than red, and not so much broken skin. I like that you are trying to look better naked for me. It's flattering coming from you."

"I don't know what you are implying," she sniffed into her wine glass. "I am only following the directives of my physician."

"How does that lie taste? I can tell when you're being untruthful, too, you know. I may blush, but you pale. It's sweet, really."

"Fuck you," she spat at him.

It was like reaching into the den of tiger, but Chang did it so fast that he did not consider the danger. His hand found her cheek. "Hey," he said softly. "I'm teasing you. That's all."

She endured his touch for moment before turning away. "I did not realize how bad my old injuries had turned until you. Nor did I understand the toll of the constant pain until it began to heal. Does that feed your ego, Chang?"

"It does a little, but I like that you are feeling better more. Why are you so angry about this?"

She looked to him, elbows on each side of her pilfered plate like sentinels and a challenge rising in her eyes. "I am displeased that you, of all people, are privy to my secrets."

Chang pushed back in his chair. "I would have to be an idiot not to notice. It's hardly damning. It's nothing."

"No, it is something."

"Would it be better if I played dumb and pretended not to see? Christ, Balalaika. What do you want from me?"

"I want to know one of your secrets, Chang."

He closed his eyes and drank down his wine.

Her voice was a warning. "Chang."

He meant to say something else, anything else. Instead he said exactly what he had meant to take with him to the grave one day. His greatest secret leaked out after all these years on his boozy breath. "I have a daughter."

Balalaika blinked. "And?"

It was too late to take it back. Chang poured another glass of wine for them both and drank his portion fast. "And nothing. That's my secret. You don't need to know the story."

"Chang, stop sulking and look at me."

He did.

Balalaika's hand propped up her chin as she stared back at him with her singular, cold-fire gaze. She tapped a long finger on her disguised cheek. "My story is written here, for all to read," she said. "Is it not reasonable to ask that you do me the favor of telling me some of your tale?"

She hasn't wrong, and if he was going to be honest with himself, he did want to tell her. He wanted to tell _someone_, even after all these years. Maybe he finally he had nothing left of his former life to lose.

"What do you know?" he asked.

She looked away. "I know the rumors."

'What are the rumors?"

"That you were a cop in Hong Kong. That you went bad for the money and left your associates dead."

Chang looked down at his full plate, no longer hungry. "It wasn't for money by then."

He heard the chink of glass as Balalaika poured the last of the wine into his glass. When it was finished, she put down the bottle, rested her hands in her lap, and waited. Chang took a breath and his wine glass, and began.

"We are not so different, you and I. You threw your idealism into the military; I went for law enforcement. So there was a time when both you and I fought for the right side, whatever that means.

"But being a cop... that was just part of it for me. I tried to do it all _right_. Everything. Right school, right clothes, right apartment. I got married right out of university to a sweet, young girl with more beauty than strength, just like men are supposed to do. I let her handle the home while I worked to rid the world of criminals, a rising star in the force because I did everything_ right_, and then I came home one day and found her-"

"With another man. Typical," Balalaika broke in.

Chang glared at her, but something else must have shown in his face because Balalaika dropped her hand on his, her thumb soft over his own.

"I was rude to interrupt," she said, "and I can see that I was mistaken in my assumption as well. It was not another, was it?"

"No, it wasn't. If only it had been that ordinary. You may not understand this, but the much of the world values a submissive wife. The sweeter and meeker, the better. So I married a girl who was not strong and whom I did not love very much, and I left her every day while I worked long hours checking the career box off my damn list. I didn't even consider what it was like for her to face the world that she had been taught to fear, all day and every day, alone. And one day, I found her overdosed on our bed, pulse so weak that I couldn't find it, and then I helped cover it up because I couldn't stomach the idea that my life would be_ less than_."

"How long did that work? The covering for her?" Balalaika asked.

"It didn't. She was hooked hard. Opiates. There was nothing that I could have done because she didn't want to give it up. Of course, I didn't know that back then. I was too hooked on the myth of perfection. I guess you could say that we both had our addictions."

Balalaika's hand closed fast around his. "In Afghanistan, where the poppy fields stretch to the horizon, I saw many good men succumb to the tar. Some came back, but there were many more who did not wish to return. I lost friends, my comrades, that way."

"I didn't know that I was even capable of losing back then," Chang said. "I tried everything. I locked her in the house every day. I even transferred into the narcotics unit to try to kill her supply. I'd follow her to the dealers at night and bust them the next day. It made my star rise faster in the force, but she always found more.

"I remember taking down this guy at the docks. He asked what was wrong with giving people what they wanted. I beat him until he stopped breathing and dumped his body in a sewer. My first kill, if you can believe that. It was right around the same time that I found out she was pregnant."

The wine glass in his hand had gone empty again. Chang paused to consider it. He wasn't one to inhale good wine, and he had killed nearly a bottle without enjoying a sip of it. He set the glass on the table, and Balalaika traded it for her nearly-full one. The gesture was as close as she could come to sympathy and about as much of it as Chang wanted from her. The stem of the glass was so thin in his hand.

"I caught on early, about the baby. Maybe six weeks in. Her doctor said there was a chance that the drugs hadn't done much damage yet, but that she needed to get clean and stay that way. She couldn't do it, not even for the kid, so I did it for her. It was funny. I'd seen her cry hundreds of times, but I only saw her get angry when I had her admitted. It took seventeen stitches to put my arm back together where she bit me, that sweet, submissive, junkie wife of mine. What a joke.

"Good facilities with around-the-clock care cost a great deal, much more than I could afford on my salary. So after all my grand-standing about right and wrong, I let myself be bought. Just another dirty cop, that was me. But it was worth it. My daughter... she came out perfect. Ten fingers and ten toes, screaming her head off. Strong. I remember looking at her in the nursery, watching her fight her way out of the swaddling clothes while this little girl next to her could barely breathe, and I was so proud. But there's only so long you can play both sides of the table- good cop, bad cop- and my time was up. I was fucked, but her? She had her whole life ahead. Her mother had pulled her IV and took off from the hospital as soon as the anesthesia wore off, and I was just some lousy cop drowning in debt and locked into a devil's deal with the mob. I spent hours in that damn hospital trying to figure out what the right thing to do for her.

"In the end, I paid the shift nurse to switch my daughter with that little girl who was destined to die in that nursery because she couldn't breathe. Then, I walked out of the hospital and helped kill my former squad on the docks. I became what I am now that night, and I never saw my daughter again."

The wine glass was empty again. Chang stared at it for a moment, not believing. With her free hand, Balalaika took it away before the stem could shatter in his white-knuckled grip. Her other hand was still caught up in his, their fingers locked together. She would not break so easily.

"What happened to her, your strong little girl?" Balalaika asked.

"She grew up. When she was still a kid, I used to hire private detectives to make sure she was taken care of. I made it seem like I was investigating the father for something, so they didn't even know I was looking into the girl. Her parents were great. They adored her. They wanted a daughter, and it was just really shitty luck that their real one came out with busted lungs." Chang paused, trying to figure out how to say what would come next without making it sound like an accusation. "The nurse who did the switch took a stroke about three months later, so no one alive knows anymore but me. You couldn't find her now. No one can."

"Is that the truth? You are blushing, Chang."

He was. He could feel the burn of blood in his cheeks because the truth was that he didn't know if his girl was safe, not really. He didn't know if everything that he had done to protect her was enough.

Balalaika turned in her chair to face him, pulled his hand into her lap, and closed both of hers around it. The top of her tongue moved over her lips, and then she looked at him with her face the color of skimmed milk.

"What happened to your wife?" she asked.

Chang shook his head. "I don't know."

"Do you want to know?"

The question hung between them, lethal as cloud of nerve gas. Chang knew what she meant. He wanted to jerk his hand back from Balalaika's grasp, but hers were locked over his, unyielding as stone.

"Let me finish the story. May I do that for you, Chang?" she said, almost sweetly.

Chang could not answer.

"Your wife killed herself with an overdose two weeks after she left the hospital," Balalaika went on. "It was almost instant, and she did not suffer. I read the autopsy reports myself." She paused to wet her lips with the tip of her tongue again. "The report was clear that she had recently given birth, so naturally, I pressed that investigation. I found the hospital and narrowed the window of delivery within three days, and so I was able to pinpoint the child eventually. The official cause of death was underdeveloped respiratory function, with physician's notes that indicated the mother's drug use likely played a factor in the defect. It looked like a dead end, so that was as far as I went. Anyone who pursued that path would have found the same and abandoned their search at that point, as I did.

"There were dozens of girls born in that hospital every day. Despite the information that you just told me, I doubt that I could find yours, even with the many resources of Hotel Moscow at my disposal." Something like a smile spread over her face. "So, you see, your daughter is safe, even from the likes of me."

It didn't seem adequate or right, but he said it anyway. "Thank you."

Some color rose in her face. She looked down at his hand caught fast in her lap. "I'm impressed, Chang. I did not know that you were capable of love."

"That's a funny name for what I did."

"On the contrary. At its root, love is valuing the protection and happiness of someone else above our own well-being or selfish desires. You loved her so well that you gave her to a better life. I imagine that you love her even now."

"I do."

Balalaika raised his hand to her lips and pressed a cool kiss against his knuckles before dropping it and returning to her meal.

"This food is only half-terrible, unlike everything else from your country," she said and filled her mouth with spare ribs.

It was an invitation to move on, and Chang could have kissed her, mouthful of ribs and all, for it.

"I've had kvass," he countered while settling chopsticks into the familiar grooves of his hands. "I don't think your heritage affords you the right to insult anyone's cuisine."

What small talk they were capable of petered out before dinner ended, so when they returned to his bedroom, Chang suggested a movie. They agreed on a newly released Hong Kong action flick from a Triad-owned studio. Balalaika sat next to him on the sofa and endured for the cheesy gun fights and long-take martial arts scenes nearly an hour before she turned to him and declared, "This is ridiculous."

Chang thought about schooling her in appreciation for kick flicks, but then Balalaika shed the silk robe and flung it to the floor. He couldn't resist an invitation like that. What man could?

Her touch felt as tender as it was demanding. The luxury of time meant they could do everything they wanted, and he wanted so much. From the sofa to the floor and finally to the bed, they delayed the final moment again and again, pushing the edge of need until it hurt. Lost to that exquisite pain, Chang lost even more. The inevitable climax left him perfectly empty, as if his body had been hollowed out by the fire of her. Nerves raw from those pleasure games and mind wiped blank, Chang turned his head to see the hard truth. She had rolled away from him, breathless and satiated, with her hair tangled around her face. The inches between them stretched to fathoms in his head. Chang wanted nothing as much in that moment as to pull her back against him and let her warmth ease the emptiness in him, but he did not even stretch a finger toward her because she was Balalaika, more of a force of nature than a flesh-and-blood woman. She did not understand that kind of human weakness.

His surprise had no limit when she elected to turn back to him and rest her head in the dip of his shoulder with her arm flung across his chest.

"I am cold," she said simply.

Chang tugged the sheets over them and held her there, the night ticking away slowly. While he counted her every breath against his skin, the dark thing in his head got loose once again. It prowled freely through the shadows of the room. It ducked under the bed and growling its terrible warnings. That the stack of hands and feet in the town square would be his if they were caught. That she would kill him when the right moment came. That there was no future for them and no profit to be gained by any of it. That Balalaika was not capable of such a thing as love.

The dark thing did not lie, but in that arms of that night, Chang could not be bothered to pay attention to its pleas because there was Balalaika, nude and shameless, almost asleep on his chest.

He knew it would end badly. The dark thing belonged to him; of course, he knew. It would end with his heart on the floor, but no threat of tomorrow could distract him from that perfect moment.

Just the night and her.


	11. Chapter 11

Later, he would call them his Unreal Days, those six weeks between the day that Balalaika crashed his tower's defenses to spend the night in his bed and the awful moment their affair ended. Chang would turn the memories over in his head so many times over the long years thereafter that the hard edges of what happened wore away until they rolled easily in his mind, as smooth as sea glass, but time would never make anything about those six weeks ever feel true or possible. His romance with a stone wall of a woman like Balalaika, who should have killed him instead of kissed him, couldn't be explained with the normal laws of logic and reason. Chang would never understand it, even though he lived it.

But the affair did happen. They happened. And it lasted for six unreal weeks.

Six weeks together gave them time to develop a few private rituals, those little things that lovers share with each other, alone. Their farewells were Chang's favorite of these habits. She left first, always. She put on her clothes and pulled her full meter of golden hair back into a high ponytail with both hands. Her heels went on, one at a time, and then she would stand tall, straighten her shoulders, and step directly into his willing embrace to rest her cheek against his. Not once did Chang want to release her, but she would say "Soon" and seal that promise with a kiss, chaste and sweet against his mouth. The sweeping of her overcoat, and she would be gone. Chang spent the necessary time to space their departures smiling like fool into the dark every time.

Another ritual developed to sustain them in the most literal of ways. Food. Not a full meal like that perfect night in his quarters, but at least one of them brought something to share when they met. Sweet Thai tea that left orange, sugary stains in paper cups. Salted butter and red caviar tucked into a fragrant loaf of still-warm black bread. Fried fish balls, yellow and greasy on long wooden skewers. Apple pastries, all sticky with honey. Strong black coffee cut with heavy spoonfuls of evaporated milk. Once, on a whim, a large pizza topped with olives, sausage, and miles of chewy mozzarella. They ate in the warmth of the after, half-clothed or not at all, amid the wreckage of sheets. If they felt like talking, they did, but as often as there was something to say, there was nothing that needed to be said. They ate in comfortable silence while the mad city raged against itself, sirens blaring and guns ready, just outside their door.

An odder ritual of equality came to be, too. In the beginning, Chang had been the one chasing her down, out of his mind with lust, but in the Unreal Days, Balalaika matched him in all ways. She phoned him to set up exactly every other encounter and refused his offers to arrange the tricky details of their scheduled trysts. He fought it at first, unwilling to accept any surrender of control, but relented when Balalaika insisted (in her unmovable fashion) that she _would_ do her share. Later, he would realize what her need for equality meant. Balalaika did not speak of emotions. She did not relish expressing gratitude or accepting gifts, so she matched him, call for call and date by date, because she wanted the balance of favor to sit even between them. She wanted to take from him, but only as much as she could give in return.

When Chang realized, it became a game. He lit her cigar and poured her drink just to enjoy that she would do that same for him. He bought her a Chinese silk robe embroidered with crouching tigers and laughed like a fiend when she sent him a leisure outfit in return—a blue jersey shirt and tan slacks with pleats. Neither of them would or could wear those gifts, but that was hardly the point. Chang tucked his new clothes into the depths of his monochromatic closet to remind him of what did not match his ordered life. A taste of the other side.

The habit of equalizing made another ritual that might have otherwise gone unnoticed blaze out to Chang. They tried so much together without finding or setting hard limits, but there was one thing that Balalaika refused him time and again. Simply put, she would not stay under him when they fucked. She would roll to claim the upper position or escape to kiss him and offer another way, the asking so hot and wordless that Chang gladly agreed every time. But she would not lie on her back and let him have her. If she hadn't demanded such exact equality in every other aspect of their relationship, the whole matter of minor bedroom dominance would not have bothered Chang, at least not in the short span of those Unreal Days. But she did demand a balance, and so it mattered. He wanted her under him, gasping and surrendered. He wanted only a moment of submission, and she would not allow him that ordinary thing. It was so damn ridiculous that someone with his level of power and talent would covet anything as droll as _missionary_ that Chang could almost laugh at himself, but he didn't because the longer that she rolled and escaped and denied him, the more Chang needed it from her.

Since she would not give, Chang decided to demand. After six weeks of growing hunger and needling frustration, Chang captured Balalaika's slender wrists, pinned them hard to the mattress, and took her exactly as he wanted her.

The wounded whimper that broke from her in that moment would haunt him forever after.

Chang pushed away fast, gargling his heart in his throat and sick into the depths of his guts because he understood her denial at last. He hated the world and every molecule of himself because, oh yes, he understood it perfectly. Someone long ago in her murderous past had held her down, as he had held her down, and raped Balalaika.

It took a long minute for Balalaika to untwist her face and open her eyes. She blinked fast, then looked away. The hand that darted across her face came away smeared with one fat tear.

On some level, Chang recognized as Balalaika snatched her clothes and disappeared into the bathroom, he had always known this about her. Whoever had been sick enough to sear those scars through her smooth skin and into the muscle below would not have been stopped by the borders of purely physical pain. Those who believe in torture use all of the tools of humiliation and abuse available to them. He knew this, had always known this, and yet did not understand it until she cried out and awoke him to his idiocy.

In the bathroom, water ran from the polished faucet into the marbled basin of the sink. He listened as she held her breath and bathed her face in cold water. The handle protested when she turned it to stop the stream, and the towel whispered a compliant as it slipped from its rod into her damp hands.

No clever words could make what he had done any less awful, so Chang sat there, perched on the edge of the destroyed bed, and held onto the contents of his stomach in silence.

On the nightstand, a pair of rolls stuffed with wood-smoked barbeque went cold.

She emerged soon, fully clothed and so pale. She did not lift her eyes to him, but her bloodless lips formed a polite farewell all the same.

"I must go now."

Chang nodded, although she would not see it.

Her ghostly hand closed on the door handle.

"I need a name," Chang burst out.

Paused in the frame of the door, Balalaika drew a full breath that rattled on its way in but came out easily.

"You cannot find them, Chang," she said without turning to face him. "You could not even find their bones. I killed them myself, long ago. I never knew their names."

And then the door closed behind her.

Chang stayed as he was, bent over his churning stomach, and struggled against the enormity of what had just crystallized in his knowing. It wasn't that Balalaika had suffered more than one assailant. Two or ten, it hardly mattered now. What did matter was that he meant what he had said.

He wanted a name. He wanted someone to track to the forgotten ends of the world. He wanted to dip his hands in the pool of just-spilt blood. He wanted to throw his every resource, squander his every outstanding favor, drain his personal fortunes, and steal whatever else he needed to be her revenge. He wanted to tear apart the sky for what had been done to her, his Balalaika.

Because he loved her.

He absolutely loved her, more than his life, more than his loyalties, and by loving her, Chang betrayed everything that he was. He broke every oath he had sworn to the Triads. He shattered every bond that held him in his carefully constructed world and branded himself a traitor. The meat cleaver waited for him, and for what? What promise of hers demanded such a ruthless reprioritization of his everything?

The rainy season in Roanapur had long since given way to calmer weather, but Chang felt the storm surging in him. Acid rain flowed through his veins as he struggled against himself. Suddenly, the sizzle of bright truth divided his black thoughts, and the thunder clap of decision boomed in his chest. There was only one way forward from this moment for him.

His mind made up, Chang stood from the bed, dressed, and locked the door to the apartment behind him when he left.

* * *

><p>Two nights later, his cell phone rang. Chang picked it up, saw Balalaika's number flash on the screen, and returned the phone to his nightstand. He retrained his attention back to the movie, a cheesy kick flick with about an hour left in play time.<p>

The phone rang and rang, and then stopped.

A quiet moment passed.

It rang again.

Chang left the movie playing to take his cigarettes out by the pool.

Those barbeque rolls. He had forgotten them in the apartment. They would be spoiled by now.

Behind him, the phone vibrated to the edge of the stand and tumbled down to smash on the floor.


	12. Chapter 12

Chang endured the first seven days post-Balalaika by drinking hard in the cold light of his television. One more glass of bourbon while another pointless movie whirled in the DVD player made time slip past him almost painlessly. He watched classic wuxia epics during the maudlin evenings, graduating to gun fu flicks in the best part of the night. He saved the chop-socky for the black hours, when not even sleep would claim him. (Why would it, after what he had done?)

In the early hours of the eighth day, Chang found himself at the bottom of yet another bottle. It was an arduous journey up from cool leather of the sofa and over to the phone on his nightstand, but the call down to the kitchen staff only took a few seconds. Chang returned to his movie when it was done.

He heard the knock over the blare of the staged gunfight and elected to ignore it. Another knock, and the door opened, as Chang expected. He held out his crystal highball for the refill, his eyes never leaving the screen. The familiar weight of the glass disappeared, and a mug of something hot took its place. Chang, even mostly drunk, managed to suppress a very uncool and unmanly yelp. In his rush to set the mug down on the table, some of the black coffee sloshed over the rim and ran down the back of his hand. Damn, it burned.

Shaking the scalding stuff from his rapidly-reddening fingers, Chang swung his head to see his visitor.

Biu looked down at him, his face a blank behind dark glasses.

Chang felt grateful for his own shades and what they kept hidden.

"Sir," Biu said.

"Biu," Chang acknowledged.

Bui offered a curt nod and then left.

Chang let his sigh slip as the door closed. Biu certainly had a way with words.

The television answered its remote and blinked into silence while Chang drained the first mugful of coffee. He polished off the rest between a shower, a shave, and a fresh suit. His overcoat smelled like stale booze and self-loathing, but the custom .22s at his back felt his the handshake of an old friend.

He spared a glance back to his private quarters when he lit a fresh cigarette at door. The rumpled sheets. The haze of days-old smoke in closed rooms. Biu was right; Chang had stayed inside with the blinds drawn for long enough. He needed to get back to who he was.

Outside, Roanapur waited for her Heavenly King.

* * *

><p>Weeks passed, then months.<p>

Chang went on as he always had.

He saw his organization surge in profit, recruitment, and retainment as the seeds of his much-needed "house-cleaning" reaped larger than expected rewards.

He reaffirmed status as beloved benevolent dictator at an especially decadent meeting of Thailand's Triad deputies.

He took that long-put-off trip to Hong Kong, ever the charismatic figure with his smooth style and newly trimmed physique. (He found that he had an abundance of energy and frustration to pour into his work-outs as of late.) He so impressed the inner circle that his rivals attempted to assassinate both him and Biu on the return trip to Roanapur. Twice. Chang took it as a quite the compliment, although Biu was new to such attentions and intent on revenge.

He staved off disasters and performed the impossible, as was expected of the one and only Wan-Sang Chang.

And he kept his mouth shut until his heart's secret stopped being a secret and became a memory. After a year, he could meet with the other heads of Roanapur's criminal organizations without the aid of pharmaceuticals. He could look on Balalaika's marred face, sneering at Abrego from across the square of chairs, and no inner storm of guilt and panic would rise up in him anymore. It was over, long over, so when her number flashed on the screen of his cell one evening, Chang answered.

"Hello, Balalaika. It's been awhile."

"It has," she said. "I will be brief."

"Take your time," Chang said to prove that he could. He was standing by his pool, enjoying a beautiful evening in Roanapur. He would never be more prepared than this.

"Very well," she replied. "I will be out of the city with a faction of my men to attend some business. The timeframe for departure is three days with an expected return in two weeks. Given Roanapur's propensity to, shall we say, _destabilize_ whenever the status quo is disrupted, I wanted to alert you personally."

Chang smiled for the benefit of the skyline. "I'll keep the city from burning to the ground while Hotel Moscow is away. I always do."

"I appreciate your reliability," she said with enough of an edge that something in his chest cracked open and oozed. Chang winced as the familiar poison seeped into his blood.

He was a fool to think that he was over her.

"You can thank me when you get back," he managed to get out. "Two weeks, right?"

"Yes."

A silence began. It stretched on the line between them. He could not find the strength to hang up on her again.

"There is something I wish to say to you," she said at last.

Chang had to wrangle his traitor tongue into responding. "By all means."

"You did quite the favor for me, Chang. I wish to thank you."

Chang's balance went, and he had to put a hand on the balcony's banister to stay upright. He had held her down, reminded her of the horror of her past, and then abandoned her. Now, she was thanking him. He wanted to laugh in the face of the wind, but his traitor tongue broke free.

"Why?"

"Still so intent on learning my secrets, even after all this time?" she said with that sexy lilt in her voice. "You are lucky that my gratitude is such that I will explain."

He heard her take a distant breath and remembered the way it felt on his bare chest.

"Once upon a time in Afghanistan," she began, "I served with a man who treated me as his equal, even though he was my superior officer. He was a man of great character and skill, and that I was a woman, which my country valued as little more than secretaries and nursemaids in the war, had no bearing on the respect with which he treated me as his comrade-in-arms. We shared an uncommon understanding and a deep friendship.

"We served together for a long time, so I suppose what happened was inevitable. After the rounds one evening, he invited me into his tent. I refused because I believed that I could not be both his comrade and his lover. His respect, and the respect of our men, mattered more than his love.

"Only many years after his death did I come to understand what I had done. I had chosen to be Balalaika, alone. Since I had refused him, that great man, I vowed to refuse all men. And for a long time, it was an easy vow to keep because no man seemed to compare to him. But then-"

She paused again. Chang knew what would come next, but he wanted her to say it, needed to hear the words from her mouth.

"But then, there was you," she finished.

The words rushed out of him before his mind could reason. "Where are you?"

Her laughter was brittle. "You do not know? You used to watch this place like a man obsessed. I am standing where you first looked at me as he looked at me that night, as a man looks at a woman. It was raining then, and you were being such a baby about it."

The building top. Christ. Chang's speed did not fail him. He had the forgotten binoculars pulled from a drawer and levelled at Roanapur's skyline within seconds. There she was, the wind whipping through her hair as she stood on the rooftop looking directly at him. No human eye could not see him clearly across that distance, but Chang felt the old familiar heat of her gaze just the same.

He was a fool to think that he would ever get over her.

"Do you understand my gratitude now, Chang?" He voice had dropped low and hot, but so blue that it tore his heart. "I nearly forgot my promises, but you kept them for me. For that, I thank you."

"Never thank me for what I did to you," Chang ground out, but he wind must have stolen his words because her face did not lose that sad smile, which made him feel like climbing over the banister and plunging twenty-five fucking stories to the pavement below.

She went on. "You have indulged me for long enough. I will take my leave now."

"Balalaika, stop," he said much too loudly, losing infinite cool points and not caring in the least.

Through the binoculars, he saw her resignation of a smile fall away at last.

"Carrying a flame for some dead guy is just about the stupidest thing I've ever heard," he said, "but I'm not really in a place to criticize. I'm always going to carry this thing for you."

In the distance, Balalaika raised the cigar to her lips and sucked down the smoke. "You really are a romantic," she said.

"If that were true, I would have picked up the phone for you last year," Chang said bitterly.

"Let's not dance with the bear now, Chang. We each made our choices long ago. I do not entertain regrets." She took another drag from her cigar. "I believe that we are through now, yes? I have somewhere to be."

Chang swallowed a book's worth of meaningless words that he wanted to tell her. The weight of everything unsaid sank into the blackness in his chest.

"Of course, Balalaika. Don't have too much fun on your trip. There are plenty of nice cities that I would like the chance to visit one day. It'd be a shame if one of them burned."

"Hmm," she said around her cigar.

And then Chang watched her pull the cell phone from her ear and snap it closed, but she did not go right away. For the span of a moment, she stayed there, her chin lifted and eyes raised, and gazed back at him while Chang kept his watch of her through the binoculars.

The noisy city measured the distance between them in grime and guns and humid air.

The moment passed.

Chang saw Balalaika drop her eyes and turn away.

* * *

><p>As she walked toward it, the door to the roof opened. Boris appeared, huge and stoic.<p>

"Kapitan, we are ready," he said and held the door for her.

"Thank you, Sergeant," she said. "I am finished here."

Balalaika flicked the last of her cigar over the lip of the rooftop and tucked the cell phone into her jacket. Even though layers of fabric, she could feel it hot against her skin. In time, it would fade to a comfortable temperature, indistinguishable from her own.

She had meant what she said to him. She had no regrets, but she would not return. Remembering was enough. After all, she only knew how to live with ghosts.

The cool of the building enveloped her as she stepped inside, back to where her duties lay.

* * *

><p><em>AN: And that's the end. Thanks for reading and reviewing. I know that Chang and Balalaika aren't the most popular pairing in the BL world, but I hope that I've done something to share the love of these characters, as individuals and together, with this story. Besides leaving a review, the best thing you can do for me is write for these characters, too. Also, would someone PLEASE make some hot Chang/Balalaika art and share with me? _

_More extensive blah blah about my writing process and this story here: unkeptsecret(dot)insanejournal(dot)com/12471(dot)html_


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